Hawai'i prison officials signed a new contract with a private prison operator this week that for the first time allows the state to financially penalize the company if the prison operator fails to deliver on promised drug treatment or other programs for inmates held on the Mainland.

Frank Lopez, acting director of the state Department of Public Safety, said the financial sanctions included in the new contract with Corrections Corp. of America were prompted by problems the state had in Oklahoma, when required drug treatment services for Hawai'i women inmates abruptly ended after the prison was sold in 2003.

Inmate programs were interrupted again for more than four months this year at another privately operated women's prison in Brush, Colo., after allegations of sexual misconduct by the staff surfaced, triggering staff resignations, firings and an investigation by the Colorado Department of Corrections.

Lopez said that interruption in programs at Brush might have triggered financial penalties if the new contract provisions had been in place at the time.

"Our problem before was that we weren't able to address the (contractors') failure to deliver certain services in the past," Lopez said. "It wasn't specific enough. Our contract wasn't tight enough."

Neither the Oklahoma nor the Colorado women's prison was operated by CCA, but state monitors have complained in the past that CCA also failed to provide inmate programs that were required by contract.

The state prison system on Tuesday transferred another 53 women inmates from the Women's Community Correctional Center in Kailua to CCA's Otter Creek Correctional Center in Wheelwright, Ky., bringing the number of women inmates on the Mainland to 120, said Shari Kimoto, the department's Mainland branch administrator.

In all, Hawai'i houses about 1,850 men and women inmates in private prisons in Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Kentucky because there is no room for them in state-run prisons in Hawai'i. About half of the state's prison population is housed on the Mainland.

The new contract covers only the 120 women inmates at Otter Creek, but Lopez said he sees it as a model for new contracts the state will negotiate with CCA next year covering male inmates held out of state.

Under the new contract, the state will pay $51.90 per day per inmate to house women at Otter Creek. State prison officials estimate it costs an average of $105 per day to house an inmate in state-run facilities in Hawai'i.

The new contract allows the state to impose "liquidated damages" on the prison operator if the operator does not provide the proper number of residential drug treatment beds.

It also allows the state to impose financial penalties if the contractor does not have the required numbers of corrections officers, educational staff workers and treatment providers, Lopez said.

Kimoto said the Otter Creek prison is still in a "state of transition" after receiving its first Hawai'i women inmates in September, and there are no inmate programs for the Hawai'i prisoners there. Under the new contract, the prison has until the end of January to get all of the required programs running, she said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.