07-23-2009, 12:19 PM
According to Mayor Kenoi’s office as reported in today’s Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Kulani employs 90 staff to look after 120 inmates. Like most state operated enterprises, it is likely no paragon of efficiency. Ergo, the inmates can probably be confined on the mainland for far less than it would cost to do so in our union shop state facilities. Personally, I think shipping away our convicts is not a good idea because it engenders an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality with regard to crime and punishment in Hawaii. I do, however, get the financial reality of cost here vs. cost elsewhere. And I don’t think Linda Lingle was the first state chief executive to farm out convicts.