The Women’s Prison Project (WPP) is grateful for the comprehensive and positive Star-Advertiser editorial highlighting the need for a new approach to women’s corrections in Hawaii and WPP’s success at having several bills still alive in the state Legislature (“Build better futures for women in prison,” Our View, March 3).

Now we want to share with your readers more background on how we have progressed to this stage. We thank you for this space to tell the rest of the story.

Often the media attention the state Legislature receives is because of a corruption scandal that involves less than a handful of Senate and House members, a controversial stand one of its members takes on a specific issue, or overall partisan bickering that sadly has been modeled at the national level.

This does not in any way describe the state House and Senate members we have gotten to know and worked with over the past four months.

The Legislative Women’s Caucus is where we started. The four co-conveners: Sens. Michelle Kidani and Rosalyn Baker, and Reps. Lauren Matsumoto and Linda Ichiyama were open to us from the very beginning offering both support and advice as we began approaching the subject matter chairs and vice chairs.

Sen. Clarence Nishihara and Rep. Takashi Ohno head their respective committees that oversee corrections, and they both made sure the WPP bills moved out of their committees. It was Sen. Nishihara and his committee clerk, Alec Ikeda, who assisted us in drafting the package of bills.

Some of the bills also got referred to the Senate Judiciary and House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs committees, where Sen. Karl Rhoads and Rep. Mark Nakashima kept the bills moving.

If all continues to go well, the majority of the WPP bills will end up in the “money committees,” Senate Ways and Means and House Finance. Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz and his committee clerk, Dane Wicker, have been invaluable to our efforts. Rep. Sylvia Luke has gone out of her way to make sure that our bills stay alive and have the maximum chance of passing.

Besides meeting with these and many other legislators, our members have interacted with Department of Public Safety Director Max Otani and Deputy Director Tommy Johnson, and received valuable support and advice from both.

We also spoke with leaders in the Judiciary; city Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm; former Women’s Community Correctional Center warden, Mark Patterson; Dr. Erin Harbinson, executive director of the Criminal Justice Research Institute; as well as the leaders of various community nonprofits that provide service to women prior to, during and post-incarceration.

The Women’s Prison Project is not a 501(c)(3) organization. We provide no direct services to anyone. We have no paid staff. We are an all-volunteer, nonpartisan, ad hoc organization that envisions a paradigm shift in how our state treats justice-involved women and their minor children. This shift has three components: disrupting women’s gender-specific pathways to incarceration, improving the prison environment, and increasing successful transition out of prison by closing the gap between the need and availability of reentry programs.

It will take all those mentioned above as well as our entire community to bring about this paradigm shift. If we succeed, the results will be healthier families and safer communities.

We are hopeful that the Women’s Prison Project can serve as a model for others in the community who are passionate about addressing long-standing problems facing our community, especially those where the issues are well-known and long-discussed, the solutions are well-researched and proven to work, and the resources are available. Imua!

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Women’s Prison Project Membership List

As of March 3

1. Denise Albano—Principal of DLA Strategies advising investors on best practices for community impact of large-scale developments. Founder and former President of Feed the Hunger Foundation, a microfinance organization that provides microloans internationally, and domestically in California and Hawaii.

2. Dr. Lynn Babington—President, Chaminade University

3. Susie Berardy—Co-owner of DBI-Hawaii which offers distribution services to small Hawaii companies and artists. Recipient of “Entrepreneur of the Year Award” by the Filipino Chamber of Commerce and “Filipina Businesswoman of the Year Award” by the Governor of Hawaii.

4. Gae Bergquist-Trommald—Senior Financial Advisor, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. Board of Regents, Chaminade University.

5. Ann Botticelli—Former Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications and Public Affairs at Hawaiian Airlines. Current Board Member of Polynesian Voyaging Society, Bishop Museum and Teach for America.

6. Margery Bronster—Former Attorney General for the State of Hawaii.

7. Karen Chang—entrepreneur. Wife of Mayor Blangiardi

8. Marilia Duffles—Writer. Published in Economist, Financial Times, American Spectator.

9. Ardis Eschenberg—Chancellor, Windward Community College

10. Elizabeth Grossman—Private investor and philanthropist. Former Juvenile Probation Commissioner for San Francisco.

11. Colleen Hanabusa—Former President of the Hawaii State Senate.

12. Joelle Kane—Attorney and Board Member at Hawaii Friends of Restorative Justice.

13. Edgy Lee—Independent, award-winning filmmaker. Founder of FilmWorks Pacific.

14. Carmen “Hulu” Lindsey—Chair of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) Board of Trustees. She has represented Maui as an OHA Trustee since 2012. She is a former properties administrator for Maui Land & Pineapple Company as well as the former administrator for the County of Maui’s Land Use and Codes Division. She is also a recording artist.

15. Linda Lingle—Former Governor of Hawaii

16. Meleanna Meyer—Creative Director, Makawalu Productions LLC. Lifelong practicing artist and educator. As an arts consultant and curriculum designer, she works with the DOE, charter schools and private organizations to integrate visual arts across the curriculum with culture as a focus.

17. Noriko Namiki—CEO at YWCA since 2013. YWCA operates Fernhurst, a transitional housing facility in Makiki where they welcome women directly from the Women’s Community Correctional Center (WCCC).

18. Camille Nelson—Dean of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa William S. Richardson School of Law.

19. Linda Rich—Licensed social worker and certified substance abuse counselor. Executive Director of the Salvation Army Family Treatment Services 2006-2014. Director of Clinical Services for the Salvation Army 1992-2006. Accreditation Surveyor (1997-2020) for the Commission on the Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities.

20. Maya Soetoro-Ng—Faculty specialist at the Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution based in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Hawaii. She is also a consultant for the Obama Foundation, working to develop the Asia-Pacific Leaders Program.

21. Debbie Spencer-Chun—President and CEO of Adult Friends for Youth. Did 20 years of direct service with youth before becoming President. Debbie was born and raised in Kalihi and is a proud graduate of Farrington High School.

22. Dr. Laurie Tom—Endocrinologist specializing in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism

23. Dr. Helen Turner—Vice President for Strategy and Innovation at Chaminade University. Professor of Biology. Internationally-regarded researcher in molecular immunology. Previous to her Chaminade appointment, she was an Associate Director of Research at Queen’s Center of Biomedical Research.

24. Lorenn Walker—Executive Director of Hawaii Friends of Restorative Justice.

25. Dr. Jennifer Walsh—Senior Vice President and Provost at Hawaii Pacific University. Scholar of crime and sentencing policy with a book on Three Strikes Laws, and articles on “Crime Policy” and “Sentencing Policy” in the American Political Science Associati sponsored Encyclopedia of Political Science.

26. Leela Bilmes Goldstein—Executive Director of Women’s Fund of Hawaii, a trustee of Abilities Unlimited Hawaii, and member of the board of directors of Hawaii Friends of Restorative Justice.

27. Marianita “Nita” Lopez—retired family court lawyer from Hale’iwa and current President of the ACLU-Hawaii Board of Directors.

28. Denise Eby Konan—Dean of the College of Social Sciences and a professor of economics at University of Hawaii Manoa. She has been a consultant for the World Bank, Council of Foreign Affairs and the World Economic Forum.

29. Margaret “Margot” Sneed—Parents and Children Together Program Director for Maui County. Prior to that she worked as the Reentry Support Supervisor for Maui Economic Opportunity’s BEST Reintegration Program. She retired in 2003 after a 25-year career with the Honolulu Police Department where she served 12 years as a detective, seven as the commander in Kalihi, and participated with the Crisis Negotiation Team and Peer Support.

30. Meda Chesney-Lind—Criminologist who specializes in gender, crime and justice issues. Meda is Past President of the American Society of Criminology. Currently she is at work locally on a grant to explore issues of Native Hawaiian over representation in the Criminal Justice System. She is also a Professor Emerita of Women’s Studies.

31. Carol Malina Kaulukukui—Retired in 2015 from the School of Social Work at UH Manoa where she focused on behavioral health and cultural programming. Since her retirement, Malina has created a healing hula program at the Women’s Community Correctional Center, integrating her cultural background with her practice in substance abuse treatment and trauma-informed care.

Camille Nelson is dean of the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii at Manoa; Carmen Hulu Lindsey chairs the board of trustees for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs; and Debbie Spencer Chun is president/CEO of Adult Friends for Youth. This was co-signed by 31 members of the Women’s Prison Project.