The Corrections Population Management Commission was established through Act 343, Session Laws of Hawaii 1993. It expanded from eight to eleven members representing all three branches of state government, the county prosecuting attorney, and two community representatives. The objective for the Commission is “establish maximum inmate population limits for each correctional facility and to formulate policies and procedures to prevent the inmate population from exceeding the capacity of each correctional facility” (Section 353F-1, Hawaii Revised Statutes). The Commission is administratively attached to the Department of Public Safety.

The Department of Public Safety is responsible for all Hawaii’s jails and prisons. The Hawaii, Maui, Oahu and Kauai Community Correctional Centers, located in each of the counties, operate as co-ed jails which house pre-trial detainees, sentenced misdemeanants, sentenced felon probationers (jail as a condition of probation), probation violators awaiting adjudication, and some sentenced felons. Halawa, Kulani, and Waiawa Correctional Facilities are prisons for felon males sentenced to greater than one year incarceration and parole violators. The Women’s Community Correctional Center on Oahu is the prison for female sentenced felon and parole violators, and also houses sentenced misdemeanants and sentenced felon probationers committed by the First Circuit. In addition, persistent overcrowding has required that the Department house some of its sentenced felons in contract facilities located in other states. As of December 2001, more than 1200 inmates are housed in facilities in Oklahoma and Arizona.

In 1995, the Commission presented a report to the Hawaii State Legislature containing results of its review of maximum population inmate limits and recommendations to help curb the growth of the incarcerated population. In arriving at the recommended capacities, a number of factors were taken into consideration, including:

• Current population
• Time spent in/out of cell
• Minimum square footage
• Custody level/classification
• Ratio of space to dayroom space
• Future, known beds to be constructed
• General safety/security including incident rates
• Standards of the American Correctional Association
• American Civil Liberties Union/State of Hawaii Consent Decree
• Ratio of space to minimum physical accommodations e.g. maximum security single celled; medium/close security double-celled provided that there is a minimum of 80 square feet of space.

The Commission recommended, at that time, 2,643 inmates as the maximum capacity of Hawaii’s Correctional System. Since 1995, there has been expansion of beds at many of the correctional facilities.

The 1995 report also included the Omnibus Corrections Population Management Plan, which addressed its second mandate to “recommend to the appropriate authorities, cost-effective mechanisms, legislation, and policies to prevent the inmate population from exceeding the limits established pursuant to section 353F-2.” The Commission developed a three-part strategy:

• Develop alternatives to incarceration (intermediate sanctions): Omnibus Plan;
• Employ early release and reintegration programs;
• Construct and/or expand facilities.

The Omnibus Plan included a wide range of recommendations to divert offenders from incarceration, reduce the length of stay in correctional facilities through rehabilitative and reintegrative programs, and expand the correctional system through construction of new beds.

The 1995 Hawaii State Legislature accepted, in part, the recommendations of the Commission. This was accomplished through amending various sections of the Hawaii Revised Statutes to implement intermediate sanctions post-adjudication (see sections 706-605.1, 353-10.5, and 353-63.5). Unfortunately, funding for the recommended programs to support alternatives to incarceration fell far short of its goal, severely limiting the ability of the Judiciary, corrections, and parole to carry out the mandates of the new amendments. The Omnibus Corrections Population Management Plan did become the vehicle, though, for funding the establishment of a drug court in the First Circuit. Funds were also allocated to expand the use of electronic monitoring.

The Commission did not meet in 1997 and 1998. When reconvened in 1999, with basically a new membership, the Commission decided to re-evaluate the maximum inmate population limits and consider anew how best to manage the population within those limits. The maximum inmate population limits had to be reconsidered, as housing units have been renovated, expanded, and added to the system in the intervening years. As for considering ways of preventing the inmate population from exceeding the system capacity, the Commission wanted to develop a method for determining the impact of its recommendations on the future incarcerated population.