Tommy Johnson’s recent Community Voice piece leaves much to be desired (“A New Jail Is Critical For Hawaiʻi’s Correctional System”). Light on data-supported facts and dense with rhetoric, the Hawaiʻi Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation director hopes no one will notice.

The director’s conclusion about the percentage of homeless prisoners in Oahu Correctional Community Center seems odd. He states that “roughly 7% of OCCC” prisoners are homeless or have no permanent address.

A 2017 report from the Hawaiʻi Department of Human Services puts the percentage of homeless incarcerated at OCCC at 30%. So, it is confounding that the 64% who “had no address” for reasons unexplained in his opinion piece are somehow not homeless.

Inexplicable.

Director Johnson states that “DCR supports efforts for reform to prevent incarceration.” However, there is at least some evidence that contradicts his claim.

I am not aware of, nor could I find, support for any piece of legislation, any new policy initiative, or collaborative effort taken by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in support of decarceration. What’s more, the director has repeatedly failed to testify in support of bail reform efforts taken up at the Legislature.

The state has been here before.

Back in the mid-1990s, as Hawaiʻi’s prison population swelled to strain capacity, the Legislature authorized the department (then the Department of Public Safety) to contract with private prisons on the mainland and ship prisoners there.

The justification?

Doing so would ease the strain on the corrections system allowing for decarceration measures and giving the department time bring down the prison population. Thirty years later, not only has the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation failed to do just that, but the Legislature has been complicit in that failure.

Now, the rallying cry for a new jail sounds eerily similar. And neither the Legislature nor DCR has shown any real commitment to decarceration.

It is accepted that OCCC is in a terrible state and that the conditions for prisoners housed there are deplorable. However, without an evidence-based conclusion it is difficult to accept the conclusion that the Oahu Community Correctional Center “is decades beyond rehabilitation.”

Director Johnson and his new-jail allies have been repeating this tired trope for years. The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaiʻi has requested any data, study, or analysis from DCR and the Department of Accounting and General Services to confirm this.

A response from DAGS confirms they have none. We are awaiting a response from DCR. We expect there are none.

New-jail proponents talk about spending approximately $1 billion, or more, to build a brand-new facility when virtually no action has been taken to immediately address the living conditions inside the jail.

Right now, the public has no way of knowing with confidence that OCCC is beyond renovation. We have no idea what that might look like or what it might cost.

It may be true that the facility is beyond saving, but when it comes to spending public dollars on such a massive project, we’d like to know for sure. Asking for proof or verification in the form of a study and report isn’t an unreasonable position to take, in our opinion.

We know living conditions in OCCC could be immediately improved if the state took steps to decarcerate. Amending parole criteria and comprehensive pretrial reform are two ways that could be accomplished.

It may also be true that conditions could be improved through renovations in a shorter timeline than currently exists for a brand-new facility. On the latter, we simply don’t know because it appears no one may have studied the possibility.

Why should we believe this new jail, this renewed commitment will lead to a different result? The public, through their elected representatives at the Legislature, should demand a halt to plans for a new OCCC. At the very least until a couple of very reasonable demands are met.

One, the Legislature and DCR must energetically pursue and support comprehensive bail reform. With so many in jail for crimes of which they have yet to be convicted, this one step would reduce the stress on the facility and its staff by dramatically shrinking the incarcerated population. Rather than principally oppose such legislation, Director Johnson must work with legislators and advocates on proven methods of jail population reduction.

Two, the public and the Hawaiʻi Correctional System Oversight Commission should insist on a cost-benefit analysis of OCCC’s renovation versus replacement. Opinions are fine and good, but when asking taxpayers to pay for a new $1 billion super jail to replace OCCC, they should be able to point to data-driven decision-making.

The best carceral models in the world indicate big high-tech jails and prisons do little, if anything, to rehabilitate. Director Johnson should ruminate more on the “rehabilitation” part of his department and less on the “corrections” part. His wards will be better for it. As will our communities.