With hearings scheduled later this month on a plan to reopen Kulani Prison on the Big Island, it’s interesting to see what was being said about the facility back in February 1947.
I was browsing in the State Library this past week when I spotted Paahao Press, a monthly magazine published by inmates in the old Oahu Prison. According to the masthead, it was established in 1933, edited and published by inmates, and put out until 1960.
I picked up the volume for 1947, and spotted this lead editorial praising the facilities at Kulani and the commitment to providing training and educational programs for inmates.
Here’s the editorial as it appeared in 1947:
It makes you wonder whether our current Department of Corrections could facilitate an inmate-created website, both as an education for those writing and maintaining it, but as a window for the public to see into our correctional facilities.
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
It would be useful to find out how much absenteeism existed in the jail before it was shut. DOE numbers show terrible statistics for teachers on the Big Island. Then you got election workers that don’t show up on election day. I wonder if that jail was also stricken with a high level of recurring sickness among its employees.
History will have to grade Linda Lingle’s many blunders and missteps during her terrible eight ears as governor.
Certainly her sudden, unwarranted and awkward shut down of Kulani will be among them, I rate it up there with Super Ferry folly in terms of negative impact on the Big Island.
Not only did she disrupt the lives of inmates who were working for release and a new chance at life, she aggravated the mainland prison transfer thatremains a huge wart on Hawaii’s nose.
She disrupted the lives of dedicated correctional officials and their families. She destroyed records that could haunt the correctional system, an act that clearly alarmed a former Kulani warden.
The poor coverage of this event allowed her to escape genuine criticism. As one of the few civilians who has visited Kulani I felt it was a real operatation aimed at true rehabilitation. The work lines were impressive, the production of wooden art objects from timber at the site was impressive.
Community projects by prisoners were stunning.
So count me as a retiree pleased to see restorative justice maybe being returned.
Well said Hugh.
I wish I would have had a website and some say in the world when this thing was getting shut down.
Kulani prisoners were used to build the Road to Mauna’Kea back in the Old days. Many of the Old Crew which Marsland went after his boy was murdered,Hmm the Syndicate which was synominous with the Ohana of Organized Crime, my Hanai Uncle’s would sit around the Bbq fire talking stories of prisoners numbers and the Kulani Chain Gang members who took over gambling,murders heroin,and protection rackets,etc…