25 June 2024
Eighteen men and women – including four assigned to the Hawaiʻi Community Correctional Center on the Big Island – became adult corrections officers on Friday. Photo Courtesy: Hawai‘i Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Four newly-minted adult corrections officers will join the Hawaiʻi Community Correctional Center in Hilo on the Big Island – following a graduation ceremony held last Friday at the Mission Memorial Auditorium in Honolulu.
The state of Hawai‘i Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation on June 21 welcomed 18 graduates from Basic Corrections Recruit Class 24-03.
It is the third class of corrections officers that graduated since the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation was redesignated from the Department of Public Safety. The change took effect on Jan. 1.
The Hawai‘i Community Correctional Center is a 226-bed facility located on two sites: The primary facility is situated on three acres in downtown Hilo, while its reintegration program, Hale Nani, is located five miles away in the Pana‘ewa.
Hale Nani offers reintegration services, a work release program for sentenced inmates who will be released on the Big Island and contracts transitional community residential program services for female offenders.
Since the redesignation, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation compressed its recruit training course from 11 weeks to eight weeks. The department also doubled the number of graduating classes, from two to three classes a year to six, to address the staff shortage at facilities in Hawai‘i.
Currently, there are nearly 400 vacant adult corrections officer positions of the estimated 1,500 authorized adult corrections officer positions.
The basic corrections recruit class training course includes more than 300 hours of classroom instruction and physical training. Recruits learn a variety of subjects that include standards of conduct, ethics and professionalism, report writing, interpersonal communications, maintaining security, crisis intervention, security threat groups (gangs), mental health, first aid, use of firearms and self-defense tactics.
“The department’s mission is to provide a secure correctional environment for comprehensive rehabilitative, holistic, wraparound re-entry services including culturally based approaches, to persons sentenced to our custody and care,” it said in a recent press release. “Our goal is to reduce recidivism and generational incarceration and enhance the safety and security of our communities.”
All incoming classes receive recruit field training along with basic corrections training. During the final weeks of training, they go into the facility and begin their job with guidance from their training sergeants.
The 18 graduates have been assigned to the following jail and prison facilities:
Hālawa Correctional Facility: 6
Women’s Community Correctional Center: 3
Hawaiʻi Community Correctional Center 4
Maui Community Correctional Center: 1
Oʻahu Community Correctional Center: 4