This study falls under the strategic sustainability master plan that will serve as a citable reference document to support Hawaii’s Department of Public Safety in identifying much-needed capital improvements across 8 correctional facilities statewide. The facilities under this project include four on Oahu, Halawa Correctional Facility, Oahu Community Correctional Center, Women’s Community Correctional Center, and Waiawa Correctional Facility, one facility on Maui, Maui Community Correctional Center, two facilities on Hawaii Island, Hawaii Community Correctional Center including Hale Nani Annex, and Kulani Correctional Facility, and one facility on Kauai, Kauai Community Correctional Center. 

The waste study seeks to highlight best practices and innovative programs that can be applied to the 8 correctional facilities to reduce waste and promote recycling and reuse. The team will conduct waste audits and staff interviews at each facility in order to understand waste operations and the total amount of waste being generated. Any recommendations to reduce waste and promote recycling will have gone through a matrix of scoring that looks at economic benefit, security benefit, social benefit, and environmental benefit. The project is anticipated to be completed in May 2022.

This report aims to provide the Department of Public Safety with a preliminary social enterprise design and implementation plan. A social enterprise in corrections address several different types of outcomes: education and job readiness, rehabilitative and therapeutic aspects, financial and social gains, and the development of a sustainable, high-quality product. There is a clear social mission to create impact. Social enterprises offer a unique mechanism for a solutions-and strength-based approach to reduce recidivism. The purpose of this social enterprise will have a two-fold social mission: to reduce recidivism by providing the skills needed for long-term employment and financial security, and to incorporate a green-industry focus to provide a sustainable, environmentally-focused business.

The Cultural Competence Framework explores a cultural approach to transforming the agency’s operational structure, partnerships, knowledge, programs, and facilities, adopting a whole-systems approach. Unlike most of the literature on prison design reform, which focuses on the “humanizing” of prisons or the “greening” of prisons, this research looks at cultural restoration as a means of rehabilitating individuals, families, and communities impacted by incarceration, and the ways in

The research process was incubated in an undergraduate design studio, informed by the organization of the 2018 Decolonizing Cities Symposium, and grounded in a literature review and precedent study, and a series of one-hour expert interviews with cultural scholars and community leaders. The framework synthesizes these inputs into goals, but most importantly, includes six tools to help the agency to request, fund, and implement action items.