Get out of building jails — FREE.

Finally there is a political question on which all folks — social liberals, sane centrists, fiscal conservatives, and even our politicians whose only goal is to turn public taxes into private political donations — should be able to agree.

Hawaii should not put one dime into building or buying new jails or prisons until we first make sure that we get any and all current inmates who are being jailed only for nonviolent marijuana offenses out of our jails and prisons via parole or by commuting their sentences. If we must, at least for the moment, continue to prosecute nonviolent marijuana offenses, then any future penalties should be limited to fines and/or public service. (Maybe we could use some public-service hours for cleaning and maintaining our parks or cleaning up after our homeless.)

Hawaii recognizes marijuana as a valid medical prescription. Significant sections of the rest of the United States have also already legalized marijuana for that and for general consumption/recreational use — and every indication is that these trends will continue and expand to include the rest of the U.S. in the foreseeable future.

Starting this year, Illinois will be offering clemency for marijuana convictions, following Washington, where marijuana offenders now have the opportunity to have their sentences vacated.

Is there anyone in this state who doesn’t have a friend or acquaintance who has used or continues to use marijuana? And is there anyone who thinks all of these friends and acquaintances really need to be locked up to make our state safer? If we don’t want to be locking up our friends and acquaintances for nonviolent marijuana use, why should we be locking up strangers for the same activity? Likely those strangers are someone’s friends.

Jailing nonviolent marijuana offenders just puts these individuals on the road to other and possibly more serious crimes. Jails and prisons are recognized more as “schools for crime” than as crime-prevention institutions.

For the social liberals, getting nonviolent marijuana offenders out of jail should be a matter of conscience and good government. For the sane centrists, getting nonviolent marijuana offenders out of jail just makes sense — putting them into jail is obviously pointless. For the fiscal conservatives, getting nonviolent marijuana offenders out of jail should be a way of saving tax dollars: why pay money to keep these harmless people under state control when they can be outside supporting themselves, maybe their families, and possibly even paying taxes?

And for our politicians whose only goal seems to be to turn public taxes into private political donations: just spend that construction money on improving and building our schools, one of the few options that has been demonstrated to actually reduce future crime.

I wish I could say that releasing nonviolent marijuana offenders would for sure open up enough space that there would be no possible need for building or buying new jails or prisons. But I don’t know that because the state doesn’t have, or just won’t share, the numbers for how many folks are in our jails and prisons for only such offenses.

I do know that getting nonviolent marijuana offenders out of our jails and prisons is something everyone should agree to do before spending a dime on building or buying new jails or prisons.

Henry Bennett, of East Honolulu, is a publishing professional who has worked with local academic/research institutions.