State proposing to move Kauaʻi’s only jail out of tsunami zone

A state agency is attempting to move the outdated Kaua‘i Community Correctional Center — the rural island’s only jail — from its present location on Kūhiō Highway opposite the Wailua Golf Course to a location outside of the tsunami zone.

Of the seven potential relocation sites for the minimum-security facility, the preferred one is an approximately 30-acre parcel on Māʻalo Road north of Līhu‘e, said director Tommy Johnson on Saturday at a public symposium held in Puhi by the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The Māʻalo Road location — now owned by Grove Farm, a company with reported total landholdings of about 38,000 acres on Kaua‘i — is desirable due to its proximity to support services like the hospital, police station and courthouse.

The symposium speakers at the Kauaʻi Community College Performing Arts Center made it clear Saturday that although there is a preferred site, it is not the confirmed site. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation will not announce its final decision until sometime this March, following a monthlong community feedback period that opens Feb. 1.

Johnson, the director of the state corrections department, said the relocation project remains in its early stages. No offers to purchase the land on Māʻalo Road have been made to Grove Farm, and projected relocation costs and timelines have not been calculated.

“We want to be as open and as transparent as possible,” Johnson said. “To show these are the sites we looked at, these were the reasons why these sites were not the best suited, and these are the sites that could probably work for us.”

When the Kauaʻi jail opened in 1997, it was designed to hold 12 male inmates. Today, it holds up to 128 men and women with pretrial misdemeanors, pre-trial felons, sentenced misdemeanants and parole violators.

The aging jail is set within a tsunami evacuation zone that floods when it rains. It is ill-equipped to handle a rising number of inmates with mental health needs, according to the Hawai‘i Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The state also has long-standing plans to expand nearby portions of Kūhiō Highway. The project, when undertaken sometime in the coming years, is projected to consume one-third of the jail site, including its parking area and housing units.

Jerry Jona, the longtime warden of the Kaua‘i Community Correctional Center, said the jail plays an outsize role in its small island community.

“Everybody’s been touched by somebody in there,” Jona said. “You know somebody that works there, or you know somebody that has been there. You’ve been there yourself.”

The state Legislature in 2024 appropriated $20 million in capital improvement project funds toward building a new Kaua‘i jail facility in another location.

Representatives of SSFM International — the consulting and engineering practice spearheading the project — on Saturday reviewed seven potential relocation sites across the island.

Peter Sangiorgio, an architect specializing in “justice design,” also took the stage to share digital renderings, photographs and personal sketches demonstrating his preferred use of open spaces and natural lighting to create campus-like environments.

Sangiorgio, of Arrington Watkins Architects, is set to lead a 150-member team that will design the new Kaua‘i Community Correctional Center. He pitched a progressive vision achieved through responsible use of funding.

“I have worked really, really hard to create safe, humane and secure facilities, with a real focus on the element of humanity,” Sangiorgo said.

A chapel, vegetable gardens, courtroom and expanded facilities for corrections officers were among ideas floated by Sangiorgio. He and others stressed the jail design will reflect Hawaiian culture and promote an environment that encourages family to visit loved ones inside.

The symposium was attended by about 40 people, including scheduled speakers and local officials like Mayor Derek Kawakami and county council members Bernard Carvalho and Felicia Cowden. Another 18 people viewed it via Zoom.

Much of the three-hour event was devoted to panel discussions covering approaches to inmate rehabilitation and success after incarceration, on Kaua‘i and throughout the state.

Panelists like Jona and retired Kaua‘i judge Edmund Acoba were joined by corrections personnel, social workers, a representative of the county prosecuting attorney’s office and others like Christina Aqui, a former inmate who is now a staffing manager of a statewide employment agency.

Panelists said corrections officers on Kaua‘i must contend with grueling overtime shifts and insufficient training and resources.

The inmates in the officers’ care face structural and personal challenges like stigma, trauma, lack of education and post-incarceration resources like transitional housing or therapy. Some inmates are middle-aged yet cannot read nor write.

“The people in our custody and care make mistakes. We’re all human. We’re all broken in some way,” said Johnson, whose remarks opened and closed the symposium.

Johnson and others described the planned relocation of the Kaua‘i jail as an opportunity for government agencies and community organizations to address this broad spectrum of problems through a continuum of services intended to reduce recidivism.

“We owe it to our people in our society to give them a second chance,” Johnson said. “But in order to do that, we have to provide them with the programs and services they need, and the technical skills they need, to be successful in reentering the community.”

Kaua‘i Community Correctional Center is unlike other state correctional facilities. Panelists stated the jail — despite the challenges it faces — has found strength in its small-town identity. Personnel and inmates address one another by their first names. Some are known as “uncle” or “auntie.” They have mutual friends and perhaps similar histories. Trust is built over cold sodas shared at the end of a hot workday.

Aqui recalled the fear, shame and denial she experienced when she first entered the Kaua‘i jail as a Class B felon about 25 years ago. She had been a drug user sentenced for dealing.

“From intake when they bring you in, the way you’re treated is like a person,” said Aqui, who went on to cofound a ministry that assists formerly incarcerated women. “You need to feel like it’s going to be okay, and that started with the staff.”

Jona said his team is very aware inmates often possess familiar faces. A common joke between personnel: It’s important to work hard, because one day your car may get stuck in the sand at Polihale. The man in the nearest pickup truck could be a former inmate.

“Because they’re our neighbors, we operate from that step of, ‘Let’s take care of everybody,’” Jona said.

He continued: “Getting to have this open rapport … I think that’s vitally important if we are to be successful at what we’re trying to accomplish here, which is rehabilitation.”

A website devoted to the Kaua‘i jail relocation project has been established. For more information, or to participate in the community feedback survey in February, visit ssfm.konveio.com/kccc.

A video recording of the Jan. 25 symposium will be made available on the website, as well.