Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.
The population in Hawaii’s prison facilities increased 23 percent from 1977 to 1978, a dramatic jump which officials attribute to socio-economic conditions and growing community anger toward crime.
More criminals are going into the system and fewer are coming out. So they’re "stacking up" in the facilities, said Conroy Chow, head of the state Office of Correctional Information and Statistics.
Figures for the previous years show only a 5 percent rise in the statewide prison population from 1976 to 1977 and a 2 percent increase from 1975 to 1976.
Chow’s data also reveals that half of the felony prisoners in custody on June 30, 1979, were serving time for violent crimes. And 67 percent … were under 30 years old.
A recent publication by the Hawaii Council on Crime and Delinquency says Hawaii led the nation last year with "the greatest proportionate increase in prison population of any state." …
According to the national statistics, Hawaii "showed a whopping 31 percent increase" from the number of jail and prison inmates confined on Dec. 31, 1977, to the number confined at the end of 1978. …
However, Chow …couldn’t substantiate Hawaii’s national lead in the prison-jail population.
He said he didn’t know how the national prison office arrived at the 31 percent figure.
Nevertheless, the increase in Hawaii’s prison population is "startling," said Andrew I.T. Chang, director of the state Department of Social Services and Housing, which administers the corrections division.
"For a long time, Hawaii ‘enjoyed’ the lowest incarceration rate per capita … particularly during the years when much discussion was occurring on master planning for the new correctional justice facilities," he said.
The plan was built around low incarceration projections and focused on rehabilitation programs in community facilities rather than a prison lock-up.
As a result, construction of new facilities hasn’t kept pace with the criminal population, requiring numerous changes in prison housing arrangements and millions of dollars in added costs.
