Some Inmates Were Stuck At The Hilo Jail Because They Couldn’t Post $15 Bail…A state prisons expert says she was surprised by how bad the conditions are at the Big Island corrections facility.
Some of the inmates at the packed Hilo jail have been stuck there because they could not post bail in amounts as low as $15, and conditions at the facility are so poor they rival conditions at the infamous Rikers Island in New York City, a Hawaii corrections oversight panel was told Thursday.
Christin Johnson, the oversight coordinator for the Hawaii Correctional Systems Oversight Commission, said she has visited nearly 50 prisons and jails across the country, “and I have never seen one in this condition — ever. It was just pretty terrible, to be frank.”
Johnson, who was recently hired by Gov. David Ige to staff the commission, has been touring state correctional facilities in recent weeks as part of her introduction to the system, and she has already been warning that conditions at some do not meet minimum legal requirements established by the federal courts.
