Both candidates in the nonpartisan runoff for the Honolulu prosecutor’s job worked in the Prosecutor’s Office early in their careers. Steve Alm was a director in the office in the mid-1980s, later serving as U.S. attorney for Hawaii and as a Circuit Court judge. Megan Kau joined the office as a deputy prosecutor in 2006, and is now in private practice.
If elected in Nov. 3 general election, both say their top priority will be restoring public trust in an office rocked by the scandal involving Katherine Kealoha, a former high-ranking deputy prosecutor, who was convicted — along with her husband, former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha — of conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Meanwhile, incumbent Keith Kaneshiro has been on paid leave for the past year and a half after being notified that he’s the target of a federal corruption investigation.
Both Alm and Kau have solid potential to advance the mission of the Prosecutor’s Office, which is to “promote and ensure public safety and order through effective, efficient and just prosecution.” But Alm’s more than three decades of experience, along with his big-picture view of criminal justice, give him the edge. Voters should choose the now-retired judge as Honolulu’s next top law enforcement officer.
In his campaign, Alm has stressed his work in probation advocacy as a key to broader changes, such as easing overcrowding in jails. Kau’s campaign has called for a more black-and-white approach to reducing crime, starting with prosecution of both high- and low-level offenses.
In response to a Honolulu Star-Advertiser candidate question regarding whether certain crimes should be prioritized for scrutiny, given city budget constraints, Kau said: “A prosecutor’s sole authority is to objectively apply the criminal laws that already exist.”
Alm sees the matter somewhat differently: “We know from research that, aside from the needed punishment aspect for heinous crimes, the more meaningful approach for determining priorities for incarceration lies in the level of risk an offender presents,” he said.
Alm would focus on putting “dangerous offenders” in prison, and look into continuing Project HOPE (Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement), an innovation he introduced 16 years ago while serving on Hawaii Circuit Court. It aims to reduce crime and drug use by giving offenders the opportunity to avoid prison as long as certain court-mandated conditions are met.
The HOPE program has its critics, and not all of its participants stay out of trouble. Kau described it as largely an ineffective “catch-and-release” program. But Alm points to various university research that found when compared to a control group on regular probation, HOPE probationers were arrested for new crimes far less often and served or were sentenced to far fewer days behind bars.
The Department of the Prosecuting Attorney employs some 100 deputy prosecutors. Kau has logged experience in training deputies in some specific areas, such as domestic violence, before leaving the office in 2010. Even so, Alm has the managerial edge, having served as a supervisor in that office and as head of the federal prosecutor’s office in Hawaii.
Also, Alm’s experience on both the bench and the bar should give the city’s deputy prosecutors a fresh approach in a changing law enforcement environment. His take on moving forward aligns well with a state law that last year created the Hawaii Correctional Oversight Commission to help enable stepped-up transparency and “positive reform towards a rehabilitative and therapeutic correctional system.”
Alm has earned, and deserves, the chance to return to the Prosecutor’s Office as its leader.
