Surely the state wasn't sideswiped by the findings of a federal investigation that Hawai'i's treatment of the mentally ill within its prisons is substandard.

State corrections facilities, especially the O'ahu Community Correctional Center, have been targets of federal officials for many years. More than seven years ago, federal courts ended a decade of keeping watch over the Hawai'i prison system because of its poor conditions. The U.S. Justice Department's civil rights investigation, most specifically targeting the mental health care at OCCC, is only the latest twist in that long-running saga.

So it's reasonable to think the state has known all along where the problems are and was positioning itself to make the fixes before now.

Apparently not. The Department of Public Safety has informed the state Senate that improvements at Hawai'i prisons will take an estimated three to five years to complete.

That might make some sense if the agency was starting at Square One and had only recently been informed there was a problem.

If anything, state officials should be scurrying to fast-track changes that would bring programs and facilities up to standard. Nobody wants the federal courts to move back into the director's chair.

State Sen. Willie Espero, D-20th District ('Ewa Beach, Waipahu), who chairs the Public Safety Committee, believes this timetable could be sped up. He wants a look at the department's overall plan to figure out where the state might pare back some of the delay.

That makes some sense. If it's going to take more money for hiring or building upgrades, or whatever, it's best to find out now, so that those holding the purse strings can help get things rolling.

Unless our officials want Uncle Sam beating down the door again, they'd better get busy.