Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 11, Number 4, 1 April 1994 — Hawaiians behind bars: Hawaiian ways out [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hawaiians behind bars: Hawaiian ways out

bv JefT Clark In order to ensure that programs for Hawaiian prisoners truly meet their needs, OHA last year formed an advisory committee on prisons whose role is to advise the OHA Board of Trustees' heahh and human services committee on where OHA should plaee its efforts. Says OHA health and human services officer Lorraine Godoy, "The intent is, through working with eommittee members like David Kamiyama and others from Alu Like, Hawai'i Paroling Authority administrator Anthony Commendador, Gloria Sylva of Families Against Minimum Mandatories, and employees of the state Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Judiciary, to identify some of the needs of the Hawaiian prisoners and try to formulate good collaborative working relationships so that any programs and recommendations would really be effective and appropriate." The eommiuee is discussing treatment programs, altematives to incarceration, family support and other issues, but has yet to eome up with any recommendations. "We're at the talking stage," Godoy reports. OHA Trustee Moanike'ala Akaka, who chairs both the prison advisory

and heahh and human services eommittees, says, "Part of our responsibility is to

eome up with some projects, some creative, innovative programs where there is a vacuum. We haven't gotten to the point where we have eome up with any concrete proposals to recommend to the health and human services committee, but it has been a very positive experience, because it has given the members a ehanee to leam about areas outside their own kuleana. It's not just tunnel vision anymore."

A statistical report prepared by University of Hawai'i sociologist Gene Kassebaum, Ph.D. for Alu Like states that Hawaiians form about 20 percent of state's population, and account for about 20 percent of the arrests, but comprise about 40 percent of the prison population. Apparently, onee they are arrested they are more likely than members of most other groups to wind up in prison. They are also at greater risk than most of being arrested again after being released. OHA trustee Moanike'ala Akaka wants to know why. "That makes one wonder what the hell's going on there," she says of Kassebaum's numbers. "I'm concerned about the over-representation of Hawaiians in prison. It's something that definitely needs to be investigated." She wonders whether the disparitv is the result of institutionalized racism, but gathers that, whatever the reason, onee Hawaiians are arrested, "They don't do real well in court"

Funding should be continued for all the religious, cultural and educational programs for inmates, especially those programs targeted to Hawaiians - that's the ieeommendation of a report to the state Legislature prepared last year by OHA's planning division in collaboration with the state Department of Public Safety, whieh runs the prison system.

According to committee member Ted Sakai, state Corrections Program Services administrator, there are three types of inmate programs: treatment, whieh includes helping sex offenders and substance abusers; educational, whieh includes GED preparation, college, and vocational training; and recreational, including athletics and concerts (Raymond Kāne and Pekelo recently did shows behind bars, Sakai says). There are also Hawaiian programs: Volunteer Nālani 01ds teaches Hawaiian culture in the prison system, the Rev. Tom Van Culin has coordinated a kupuna program and visits by Hawaiian chaplains as religious program manager for the DPS, and there is also taro farming at Waiawa Correctional Facility on O'ahu and Hawai'i Community Correctional Center on the Big Island. OHA's kupuna team has gone into some of the facilities to present their program on Hawaiian culture, values and symbols. In addition, OHA has provided the prison system with books on Hawaiian eulture and Hawaiian language tapes. When funding is available, Kapi'olani Community College brings in hula classes, and the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts brings in storytellers. OHA last year gave $500 in Hawaiian books to the prison system, and has also provided Hawaiian language tapes.

Are these recreational and cultural programs aimed at helping the inmates stay out onee they get out, or are they designed to make criminals feel comfortable? Both, Sakai says. He believes the programs act "not only to make them comfortable, but also to spark an interest so they have something positive to do when they're released." But how is leaming to sing a Hawaiian mele going to help a Hawaiian inmate? "I think that any activity that connects somebody to his culture is valuable," Godoy opines. "If you are a member of a group of people

in whieh you've experienced a loss of eulture, a loss of the land, there is naturally a sense of not belonging, of being a stranger in your own land. And along with that comes a great deal of frustration that ean express itself ultimately in poverty, homelessness, teen-age pregnancy, doing poorly in school, and all of the other negative social statistics. The art of making a feather lei is a way of achieving in some small measure a sense of accomplishment, a sense of pride, a beginning step at reconnecting oneself to one's culture; you begin to discover some of what you've lost." Jayson Virtudes, an inmate at Hālawa, last year wrote to Ka Wai Ola O OHA to thank OHA for bringing the kupuna program to

the inmates. "We have sat through this program and listened, watched, and learned a new meaning of being " Hawaiian. You've given us a sense of pride back into our lives and set the foundation of a purpose within us." Sakai estimates some 600-700 volunteers are active in the prisons. Roughly 475 of these provide religious services. Services are provided for adherents to/of all the major religions, and Sakai promises, "If you have a belief, we will go into the eommu-

nity and we will look until we find somebody to minister to you." People wishing to volunteer should contact Sakai's office at 587-1278 and be prepared to undergo a background eheek. Babette Galang, OHA health and human services specialist, stays in contact with the prisoners themselves to get their mana'o on what kinds of programs to initiate. She hopes to work closely with Ho'omau i ka Ha'aheo (Increase the Pride), a group of Hawaiian prisoners at Hālawa that she says has banded together to be the voice for Hawaiians there. "1 want to make sure that what we put in for programs is something that the prisoners want and need," Galang says. "I don't want to sit here at this desk and say, 'I think they need a program on AIDS.' I may feel that an AIDS program is a priority, but they may say, 'No, we need more substance abuse programs - we have people here that are still on drugs and can't get off.' So if I need feedback, I ean go to them and say, 'What do you think if we do this program?' They will support the program, so when we go in with a program, it will be well-utilized because we have a group in there that already

supports it. Do these programs keep inmates from coming back after release? Sakai says, "It's really hard to tell, because with a lot of inmates, they don't leave until years after they've been through a program. And with all the activities inmates participate in, it's hard to tell whether any specific program makes a difference." Sakai said the committee's work is encouraging because "so mueh of what we do literally happens behind closed doors. The more public interest the better, because that means more resources for us. I think it's outstanding that OHA is taking the lead, and I'm very optimistic."

Graphic by Jacob McGuire