Authorities are looking for a 22-year-old man who escaped from the Hale Nani reintegration center on Hawaii island, the latest in a string of inmates who have walked away from low-security state detention facilities.

Lyndal Gilliland was last seen during a head count at 6 p.m. Friday at the Panaewa facility. He was unaccounted for at the next head count at 10 p.m., said Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Toni Schwartz.

Staff conducted a search and notified police.

Gilliland was serving time for two drug offenses and was scheduled to end his sentence in December. He could face an additional charge of second-degree escape, a class C felony punishable by five years.

He is the second person to escape from Hale Nani this year. In February, Railee Santos also was missing during a head count but was caught two months later.

Hale Nani is a minimum-security, dorm-style facility for inmates who are transitioning into the community.

Inside, there are two wings of bunk beds and a central area with a security desk. There is no fence around the facility.

Gilliland is also the latest of 18 state inmates who have failed to return or escaped from a low-security detention facility since the beginning of the year. Incidents have occurred at Laumaka Work Furlough Center in Kalihi, the Women’s Community Correctional Center in Kailua and the Maui Community Correctional Center.

The rash of inmates walking out of facilities prompted state legislators to set an informational briefing for May 19 about the work furlough program.

Sen. Will Espero (D, Ewa Beach-Iroquois Point) said the expanded furlough program "is due for a hearing."

He expressed concern that two work furlough inmates allegedly committed a robbery and kidnapping while they were supposed to be looking for work in April. They were later arrested.

Espero, however, said the furlough program is among the Department of Public Safety’s more successful programs. It helps to reduce participants’ recidivism rate, which has been hovering around 50 percent for the total population, he said.

Schwartz said the number of walkouts has gone up over the past several years as the program expanded, following legislation to reduce the prison population and increase public safety.

But the percentage of absent inmates is still only about 6 percent, she said. In the 12-month period that ended in March, 355 people went through work furlough at the Oahu Community Correctional Center and only 23 walked away or didn’t return, Schwartz said. Four others were charged with committing crimes while out on furlough.

She said it may seem like there are more incidents recently because the department began self-reporting them to the media late last year to get the public’s help in apprehending furlough escapees, many of whom already work in the community and have less than a year of prison left.

"The way the program works is they have to be allowed some sort of freedom to go out and work," she said. "They’re learning how to be self-sufficient."

She said inmates often fail to return because of poor impulse control and personal issues. To counter that, the furlough program offers inmates cognitive behavioral therapy to make better decisions.

"We expect there’s going to be deviation because some people don’t have very good impulse control, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a failure of the program overall," Schwartz said. "The (furlough) program is a successful program, but we have to look into why these people are deviating."

Many inmates turn themselves in or are turned in by their families, Schwartz said. Some are apprehended through tips from the public. She said seven furlough inmates are still at large across the state.

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CORRECTION: The story has been corrected to say 18 inmates, not more than 20, walked away from low-security detention centers this year. The story was also corrected to show that 6 percent, not 1 percent, of those in the work furlough program at Oahu Community Correctional Center failed to return when they were supposed to in a one-year period that ended in March. The correction also clarified that, of that population, 23 inmates did not return when they were supposed to and four others were charged with committing other crimes while out on furlough.