The state is already cash-strapped, yet still wastes taxpayers’ money on failed strategies to keep furlough inmates on the right track.

Spending funds on electronic monitoring is a total waste of money. Stiffer punishments for escapees and those with unclean urinalysis is the answer.

Many receive marks for misconduct while on furlough. They are returned to the Halawa Correctional Facility and go back to furlough within six months. It’s a joke and game to many inmates.

Giving escapees consecutive sentences and returning misconduct inmates to the mainland prison would make many inmates think twice before taking the opportunity for furlough for granted. It’s all about choices.

We made wrong choices to get into prison. If we are still making those wrong choices while on furlough, then we should not be given a second chance at furlough.

Furlough is a great program; however, many bad apples are demonizing the program in the eyes of the public.

Quintin-John D’Agirbaud III
Halawa inmate awaiting furlough

New HSTA chief foremost a teacher

I am Corey Rosenlee’s father. Have been for 42 years.

On the road to his election as the new Hawaii State Teachers Association president, democracy was in serious jeopardy.

Recognition of that fact was well-stated in the June 11 editorial (“HSTA must focus on students, too,” Star-Advertiser, Our View). The effort by the HSTA board to rig the election was scandalous.  

I must address another matter as well:

The editorial stated the need for Corey to transition from “instigator, agitator and antagonist.”

He is none of those things. He is not a one-trick pony.

Corey is first and foremost an educator who has always had the interests of his students at heart. He is a nationally certified teacher and author of the experiential book, “History Is Fun.” The most difficult thing for him will be to leave the classroom.

I would characterize him as a doer who not only talks the talk but walks the walk for the things he believes strongly about.

Sid Rosen
Hawaii Kai

Mokapu Peninsula also sacred ground

Mokapu Peninsula contained heiau where King Peleilolani worshipped and met with his council.

Two centuries later, Kamehameha the Great assembled his leaders on this sacred land.

The sea and bays around Mokapu were also kapu.

On Thursday Oct. 21, 1869, the Hawaiian newspaper Ke Au Okoa published Samuel Kamakau’s account of the Kane creation legend:

“On Oahu between Kualoa and Kaneohe lies the first land planned by the gods. On the eastern flank of Mololani (a crater hill on Mokapu), at a place where fine red earth is mixed with bluish and blackish soil, the first man is formed by the three gods Kane, Ku, Lono. Kane draws a likeness of the gods with head, body, hands, and legs like themselves. Then he makes the image live and it becomes the first man.”

Moku-Kapu means “sacred district, keep out.” Like Mauna Kea, it’s time to remove all the desecration from Mokapu.

Danny Smith
Kailua

Sit-lie ban contrary to revered edict

With his statue draped with lei made from thousands of plumeria, one wonders if Kamehameha I would celebrate his special day knowing that laws have been passed banning sitting and lying down in Waikiki and other parts of Oahu.

In 1797, King Kamehameha I decreed Kanawai Mamalahoe, or “Law of the Splintered Paddle,” which states: “Let the old men, the old women and the children go and sleep by the roadway; let them not be harmed.” 

The Law of the Splintered Paddle is enshrined in Hawaii’s Constitution (Article 9, Section 10).

This law is a model for human rights, a guide for protecting the vulnerable and the symbol (two crossed paddles) in the center of the Honolulu Police Department badge.

King Kamehameha would be sad to know that the beautiful islands he united value commerce over compassion.

Ricardo C. Custodio
Kaneohe

Bill of Rights used to abuse the public

Is it everyone’s equal right to camp on any public sidewalk, any place, for a weekend, a week, or indefinitely, except in no sit-lie areas?

Are the laws against littering different for campers?

Individual rights seem to have precedence over the “greatest good for the greatest number,” regardless of harm, unpleasantness, inconvenience or major consequences. After all, the “greatest number” is made up of individuals.

Is this incongruity because our officials are afraid of litigation costs from the American Civil Liberties Union or others?

The Bill of Rights seems to be beyond common sense, out of control — from gun rights, to free-speech rights, to imposing squalor on the public.

Will the government ever dare take a stand to protect the public from such excesses and abuses enabled by treating the Bill of Rights as the absolute and universal truth?

Carol Han
Makiki-Punchbowl

Arnold should just give it up, move on

Former University of Hawaii Warrior basketball coach Gib Arnold needs to stop complaining and take full responsibility for the NCAA violations (“Dispute between UH, Arnold could drag on a while, lawyers say,” Star-Advertiser, June 12).

The violations happened on his watch as the head coach and he is ultimately responsible for his assistants. End of story.

Stop it and move on.

Michael Young
Mililani