 This is Think Tech Hawaii, and one of the matters here. Good afternoon. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, Movers, Shakers, and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. Criminal justice reform is a big issue. Today, we're going to talk a bit about the paroling aspect of that. But in context, it's one piece of a large entity, a large puzzle to some extent, for a lot of people who don't fully understand everything that is related, all of the implications, the upsides, the downsides. Included within all of that, we've got sentencing and mandatory minimums and where that has come up in the past and potentially the future. That straight through to policing and how they go about doing that. We're not going to get into all those details on this particular episode. We're going to be focusing this show on paroling. And to help me have this conversation, I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled to welcome to the show Mr. Fred Hyun, the chair, that is correct? Chair of the Paroling Authority for the State of Hawaii. So thank you. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. So OK, for starters, what I like to do in my show is get a little introduction of the person I'm interviewing. So if you can give us a bit of your background, I've got your resume here, but a bit of your background of what you've done and what got you to this role that you're in, so that would be a great beginning. Well, I started actually with the YMCA system, Kali YMCA back in the 60s, and dealing with housing kids and children of, how would you say, past inmates. And then after I completed my college education, I went into the Hawaii Air National Guard, came back from active duty, and started with the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility. So finding that my boss said, this is a dead end for you as a Youth Correctional Officer. So he encouraged me to go back to school and get my master's, which I did in social work. And in 1975, I'm still with the Youth Correctional Facilities going to school and finally graduated. They gave me an opportunity to run the first halfway house for incarcerated juveniles. I was in 1975. So running that on a federal grant monies and state matching funds, we had that project going for five years until 1980. And then it was time to move on, because we didn't have money to continue the halfway house. So then I started another federal project with the Intake Service Center, Oahu Intake Service Center, doing jail over crowding. And we started with a pilot project with the Honolulu Police Department, interviewing misdemeanors, because there was a huge population that was just crowding the prisons or the jails. And then from there, it eventually became a permanent project. But we would interview arrestees, take them to district court, make all the necessary alerts for the sheriffs regarding mental health, suicide, violence, drug issues. And they would present bail recommendations to the presiding judge, arraignment judge. That stemmed off to a lot of other things such as diversion, crisis management, and mental health issues, diverting them to state hospital, and the judges receiving all this information. And I did that for approximately 21 years, and then moved to the big island, where I was the branch manager for Intake Services Center for the Third Circuit, until my retirement in 2003, after which I was working with a call security as a corporate security type person doing the administrative and compliance work. And after four years of that, I was pulled in by the Honolulu Liquor Commission on contract, and I worked for them for seven years until this position as chair of the Pruldi Authority came up. In between that stint in the early 2001 with the Lingola administration, I was called upon by Public Safety and Office of Youth Services to serve as a consultant, because there was this big transition and things going on at the Youth Correctional Facility. So I was working part-time as a special consultant there, as well as working on the big island until I actually retired in 2003. So it's been a long journey. There's a lot of really good work. There's a lot of good, positive work you've done there, and I think not a lot of people understand that piece of it. So thank you for that window of what you've done. And so that touches on one of the big topics that's really talked about on all levels these days, and certainly within Kalihi, which is OCCC, as well as our prisons and juvenile facilities. But it's that overcrowding. It's what do we do, and how do we do that? So you've worked on part of that in the past and how to help address that. It seems like we need you back in doing that to a certain extent, but I know that you are involved in a number of areas in trying to help support that. So again, first of all, thank you for all of the time and all of your service. So now that you are in this role, and the chair of this authority, tell us about what the polling authority does and what your direction is with it. I think before we go into that, we should understand the difference between a jail, which is pretrial in short term, and a prison, which is more long term. For five year type sentences and five, Hawaii has an indeterminate sentencing requirement. So the courts have mandated sentences for those with a class C, five years, class B, 10 years, and a class A, 20 years. And then you have extended terms to life with the possibility of parole. So when a person is arrested, they go through the court system, is convicted, and they are sentenced to prison. Now we're talking at least a minimum of five years. So once a person is sentenced, within six months, the parole board will set the minimum terms of incarceration before being eligible for parole. So there is a requirement, which is determined by levels of punishment based on social history, criminal background, their family relatives, ties in the state, and whole criteria that the board has to review in determining the levels of punishment, as well as the seriousness of the offense. So the board will set the minimum within six months of being admitted. And if it's 3 out of 5 or 2 out of 5 or 5 out of 10, that is where the minimum comes in. A person is not automatically paroled once they have hit their minimum. But if they've complied with the treatment programs as prescribed by public safety, substance abuse, sex offender treatment, cognitive things, and a lot of them are prescribed the general GED, or general equivalency diploma. We'll consider all of that towards their eligibility once they hit their minimum. So let's say a person comes in, has a minimum of two years, but has not completed all the rad recommended programs. Then we'll look at that and say, you know, you've had so many misconducts. You need to complete program by law. We'll need to see them within 11 months. Well, excuse me, 12 months, but we'll normally see them in 11 months. But if you're close to finishing your program, we can short set that and say, OK, you only need two months more to finish a program or four months more. We'll short set this and we'll see you in four months. You better have a good parol plan, which would mean place to live, employment, or readiness for work furlough. Those are all very good questions that immediately I want you to talk because I don't want to do most of the talking. But I do have questions with you. So first of all, when people talk about, OK, they got off for good behavior, this is what we're talking about. We're talking about they didn't have too many altercations well in and they completed a program. It's more like programs because a person, when they first come in, unless they've had a longstanding drug abuse problem, ICE is the biggest thing going right now. So if they have not completed a certain level of program, which was prescribed, and they needed additional type of, if they're a sex offender, they need to complete sex offender treatment, which would be a two-year program. They need to complete these, even if they're eligible for parole, they'll need to complete these before we will even consider release, as well as having a strong parole plan as residents or work furlough or anything else. Exactly. Now that was my next question. How do these inmates, and is that something that the parole office helps with, how do these inmates create that plan? They work with the case managers in the facilities, and everybody has. The case managers are assigned to inmates, and the inmates will have to work with classes or the instructors to get their credits. The case managers will do the assessment, and they'll show completion or not completion. And we'll know, and we have a pre-parole unit of parole officers who actually do the, they'll do their reports, pre-parole reports, to ascertain whether parole is recommended or not recommended, based on completion of program or not, or placement or not. OK. So that includes helping them find a transition house, they're able to get out, helping them find a potential transition job, as well as any other continuing education that comes on that? There could be. Some of them will go on to community college. But now the other thing is, you'll find that a large majority or a large population have no work skills, have not had a job, need to be disciplined, work disciplined, educated, in how to just handle money. So that's why we normally recommend work furlough as a next step to transitioning out before parole. By going to work furlough, they'll be interacting with other inmates, as well as staff. They'll go through job seeking, job finding. Once they secure a job, then they can earn some money, regular wages, minimum wages, I believe 9.25 an hour now. Right now. So they'll earn minimum wage or more. And we'll watch their adjustment while they're going to their work, as well as eventually they'll go through, say, re-socialization. If they have a family or people that they can go out to in the community, they may be placed on a 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 hour pass all the way up to 72 hours. So that helps with a transition back into the community, which is important. Yeah. Because you brought up all of the most important points there. It's transitioning back into the community, but also to be a positive producer within the community as well. Exactly. Correct. So we have the case managers in the furlough centers, as well as with our project bridge at OCCC. They perform critical, important tasks of assessing the inmate while they're going through that process, as well as our pre-parole people, starting to pick up more of that and validating to help develop and confirm a viable parole plan. So all that needs to be brought in when we hold parole hearings. So after the minimums are set, they're eligible for parole and they complete programs and they go to, say, in this case, work furlough. They'll go through this process of job seeking, holding a job, and re-socialization, then coming back with a strong parole plan as far as placement back in the community. OK. Wow. So there's a lot of work there, a lot of people supporting a lot of. So that's OK. That's really good to understand. So we're already at our break. So when we come back, we're going to talk a bit about some of the success of that, some of the challenges, and some of the goals going forward. So thank you again for joining us. And thank you for joining us as the Think Tech Hawaii mover, shakers, and reformers of politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. And once again, welcome and I appreciate my guest today, Mr. Fred Hewn from the chair of the Paroling Authority here in the state of Hawaii. So see you in one minute. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, which streams live on ThinkTechHawaii.com, uploads to YouTube, and broadcasts on cable OC16 and O'Lello 54. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. Some say scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut. At DiveHeart, we believe that to be true. We say, forget the moon. DiveHeart can help children, adults, and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on Earth. Search DiveHeart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life. Welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers. Once again, I'm your host, Carl Campania. Today we're talking about the Hawaii Paroling Authority and the role that they play within criminal justice and potential reforms in the future. So this conversation, once again, welcome to the show. Welcome back. Mr. Fred Hewn from the Paroling Authority. He is the chair of the authority. So once again, welcome. And thank you for the opportunity to help us learn what you do and what you've done. So a lot of amazing work. So just as a summary, it's a big picture. The Paroling Authority is in charge of helping inmates transition back into the community to include a program, a plan, a set of plans that they need to accomplish in order to be able to get back into the community, have a placement back in the community, have a job, and have hopefully a productive path forward. And that's the goal to make it really succinct. As you mentioned, it's much more complicated than that. So my next question is, with all of that, what would you say, there are conversations about their recidivism rate and a lot of other challenges. I don't want to go into too much at the moment with regards to the number of people that we have in the jail versus in the prison. And that's an important distinction as well. But from what you have seen through the Paroling Opportunity, through the Paroling Office, what is the success rate that you see? Or what is the recidivism rate? And what are some of the factors? Well, if I may, if we can just step back a second, because I'd like to make a clarification that what happens in the prison and what happens with parole is basically a partnership and a flow of work in the process. So they both depend on each other. They have to work integrally with each other. So as far as the parole board hearing cases, and again, there is the minimum sentencing, there is parole consideration, as well as parole violations. So the board has to entertain all of these when the hearings come up. And just as some numbers, we're dealing with over 4,000 in-person hearings a year. When you add in the administrative hearings, such as reduction of minimums, interest rate transfers, we're talking close to 6,000. That's a lot. So it's a big staff? We have four board members, part-time, and one full-time, which is myself. We have a support staff of the secretary to the board. But we have on each island, as well as Oahu, we have a total of approximately 53, 54 staff. Parole officers and clerical, the administrator branch, parole is a part of the administrator, the branch administrator, and supervisors. So that's a lot. And then they have to coordinate with the jail and the prisons and through all of the social work aspects and all of the programming in order to make sure the thing that's a big job. It's tremendous. And we have dedicated staff. And I really applaud the prison case managers for the work that they do as well. Because without a lot of their reports, it's very difficult for the parole board to do its job as well. So absolutely. I'm a licensed foster parent. So we know we're close to the same, but I know that we work with social workers and case workers with regards to children. And some of these children have parents who are in and or out of prison and or jail. And oftentimes we get a child because the parent or parents have gone to jail for a period of time. And then having to be there and sometimes having visits with them where we have to bring the children to OCCC, for example, just so they can have some time through that transition period. There's a lot to be dealt with and a lot to be understood. And all of these people, and I want to echo that, all of these people who work doing this, they work very hard and they're very dedicated and they are overworked if you have to make it. So you can very well understand the relationships that are involved. And we don't like to exclude anybody because everybody's really involved in a process. And the judiciary as well, because we rely a lot on their reports and their pre-sentence investigations to help us with treatment planning as well as setting other minimums as well as finally granting parole. Now, not all people are granted parole. It's not just everybody who does their time can go. There's a lot of behavioral shaping involved because if an inmate is not ready, they can't go. Understand that the board's mission is to assess risk. The board's mission is risk to the community and safety of the community. So if we have a dangerous person who is assessed as dangerous, has not completed programs, to us that's a risk. If they have a certain attitude, they're not showing remorse. These are things that we also take into consideration. But ultimately, it's to minimize any risk to the public before we're granting parole. And then we have supervision of various levels of inmates or parolees. Some need closer supervision than others. So we have a special services unit that monitors them very closely as well as those who are on, what would you say, less restrictive supervision. So depending on their performance, depending on their behavior, depending on their record, do our appeals make that, or parole officers make that assessment. And they're very good at what they do. And we do have a number of people violating and we have to conduct revocation hearings. And sometimes we have to ultimately put them in custody. Now when a bill, a parole warrant is issued, it's a no bail. So they can't just post bail like in pre-trial and get out. They are there until we hold a revocation parole violation hearing. And there's a good chance they may be revoked to the max or their sentence, because we can't hold them beyond. And we may come back within six months or it could be longer. So the parole board has to make that type of decisions based on they're not complying with the terms and conditions of parole. So when they get out, it's not like they got a free ticket out. Right, exactly. Now with that though, if they don't go through a fair, don't receive an early parole, under any of the conditions or any of the possible there. And they have served their full term. They're then released. They're released. Are you involved at that point as far as their transition or is that an entirely different entity that helps with that transition or are they literally just here's the door go? Basically it's here that here's the door, you're done. But if I may plug, there are some organizations such as Bud Bowles with United Self Help who does pick up some of the max out types who have mental health issues and he'll escort them and try and help them with some spending money and accommodations temporarily. But as a whole, they're out. We have referred some like on the neighbor islands to some other housing, but they have to show homelessness first before that program can pick them up. But basically they're on their own once they max out. It seems to me if you've been in jail for however long and you just are let out, you're homeless. It just, immediately, unless I guess you go back to whatever family you have. They have family or friends or whatever, but yeah. Okay, all right. We have a few minutes left. What I would like to sum a transition to is as far as any potential reforms, I know there's a criminal justice task force that I've been lucky enough to be able to attend some of the meetings for, as far as thinking for the future and as far as what sort of your future guidance is of what you're trying to accomplish within that, what are some of the challenges and what are you looking for as far as accomplishments, as far as your department is concerned? Well, for the board, we want good accurate information to make good decisions regarding parole. You know, we're stuck with the problem of drugs and unfortunately you have to expect addicts to probably relapse time and time and again to finally they get it. But housing is critical towards parole and rehabilitation. Without housing, we have no place to put these individuals back into the community. So that's a big issue. Follow-up treatment, substance abuse, drop-in centers. You know, if we had more like that here and on the neighbor islands, some of these lost past parole maxed out types would at least have some place to go. Okay, so some extended services through parole and beyond parole. Yes. So that they're not falling off so that's a huge thing. Even within the foster care system, what we worry about is whether they emancipate themselves or whether they age out, they're just gonna fall off a cliff. Where do they go and how do we help them still? So that's sort of what you're saying is that sort of continuation of services. Those things will bring back the offender to reoffend the recidivism rate. It's and a lot of them are repeaters. They've been in prison two, three times already. Two things that usually help reduce the recidivism is education and age. Because they get to a certain point where that criminal life is just too much and they realize they can't be going to prison. But we can't wait for everybody to get educated and age out, right? Right, right. So- What about that as a service? You mentioned they go through, some of them are required to get a GED. Some of them perhaps already have it. Some of them perhaps finished high school and whatever it is, but whatever those. What about bringing a different level of education in? What about like a vocational training or a trade? Getting them involved more in a trade so that their path forward has a positive ring at the end that they can see, that they can reach for as opposed to, okay, you've got your GED, good luck. That sort of a long line of some of the, some of the continued services that you'd be thinking about. You know, since I came back out of retirement and what I've seen with public safety, the amount of programs available to inmates is a hundred fold compared to what I used to be in the system. And there's a lot of inmates from the mainland as well as over here who have taken additional courses like parenting, father, being a father, these type of things which help them on the outside. And they're taking it on their own. These things were never offered before, but what's also important is the cultural programs, especially for Native Hawaiians, you know? And with I have seen and the board has seen those inmates who have taken the cultural programs who have a stronger sense of confidence, self-esteem, they feel there's more of a calmness because they know who they are. And, you know, we'd like to see more of these programs. I think that is excellent. I, one of my friends is Kuo Hina. I know that she has come and she's been involved in some of that. One of my other friends is Kai Markel. I know that he's been involved. He took a photo of some of the things that it, so hearing some of their stories as well connects with what you're saying. And we just saw, I just saw Hina and we were in the task force a little while ago. And we recognize Hina's work because it shows in the inmates and how they come before the parole board. It's such an important piece. Oh, so much. Such an important piece, so much. We are, unfortunately, at the end of our show. So thank you so much. I would love to have you come back again to dig deeper into. We can find a particular part of it that we can dig into. But again, thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate learning about what you're doing and what you've done in your career. And thank you for all of our service. Thank you. I really appreciate it. All right, so thank you again. And thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movershakers and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. Next week is Labor Day. We are going to have a Labor Day special. So please join us then when we are going to hear about labor in Hawaii. See you then.