Our correctional system is seeking its sixth director for the Department of Public Safety since 2003. A lack of consistency, a vacuum of leadership, and varying commitments to rehabilitation have left our correctional system in crisis.

The lack of security staff at our prisons has diminished programming and family visits. This has also led to excessive overtime by adult correctional officers, and job burnout.

The staffing crisis at all our prisons has diminished family visitation. This is counterproductive. The most striking feature of the literature about the benefits of visits for prisoners, their families and communities, is that there is little if any contrary argument or conflicting data to the general principle that the better the quality of visitation throughout a prisoner's incarceration, the better the effects on the prisoner, on his or her post-release adjustment, on the family of the prisoner and the community.

Prison visits are further impacted because Hawai'i has the dubious distinction of banishing more inmates — currently 47 percent of our prison population — than any other state in the nation, according to the 2000 Census data (the most recent available).

It costs Hawai'i's taxpayers more than $33 million a year to send away 1,858 of our inmates to four private prisons in Arizona, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Kentucky, all of which are operated by Corrections Corporation of America. And we cannot forget that Hawai'i has other inmates in Colorado and Virginia, that I know of.

Now, the Department of Public Safety has just asked for authorization to send another 701 inmates away at an additional cost of $12 million. And this is only the economic cost. The social costs of shipping our inmates elsewhere are enormous.

In Hawai'i, 'ohana is very important. In 2004 and 2005, 41 percent of all inmates shipped to private Mainland prisons were Native Hawaiian. Keeping families connected benefits everyone. Hawaiians know that intuitively. The classic study was done by Holt and Miller in 1972. Other research has shown that prisoners with no visitors were six times more likely to re-enter prison during the first year of parole as those with three or more visitors.

The often-unexplored impact of incarceration is on the children of incarcerated parents. These innocents end up being six to seven times more likely than other children to end up in prison. A bill is under consideration now that would extend a task force for another year to identify ways that we can keep these keiki from falling through the cracks. It should pass.

Healthcare of inmates has another serious socio-economic impact. Families of inmates, and inmates themselves, have reported that their prescribed medications have been either reduced or changed. How could this be allowed?

I've had numerous calls about healthcare from our women in Kentucky, who were plagued with diarrhea and vomiting when they arrived at Otter Creek Correctional Center in Wheelwright.

And recently, families of Kentucky inmates have contacted me confirming what our women have said.

In December 2005, three of our inmates were rushed to an emergency room — one with pneumonia; one who needed triple heart bypass surgery; and Sarah Ah Mau, who died on December 31, 2005, of undisclosed causes in unsettling circumstances. Eleven of these women were at the Otter Creek Correctional Center. Hawai'i taxpayers are shouldering this moral and economic burden.

Hawai'i just shipped another 30 women to Kentucky last week. I know that two of the women are mentally ill, and with the healthcare experience thus far, we should be very concerned.

An inmate in an out-of-state prison doesn't have much recourse when a problem arises. Sometimes they are told to follow Hawai'i rules and other times they are told they must follow the rules of the state where they are held. This creates undue stress and confusion.

Some of the men's prisons have a Hawai'i-paid monitor on site, but there is no such monitor in Kentucky, where a guard was just charged with sexual abuse. When the monitors do visit, inmates report that they are less than responsive to violations the inmates report. Taxpayers need to demand more substance from our publicly funded program.

And Hawai'i sends no monitors to other prisons where some of our other inmates are held, so they are entirely at the mercy of the prison staff. When a "rule" changes, the inmates are told that the administration got a phone call from Hawai'i instructing the prison to do something, but there is never a paper trail to verify that this happened.

Most of the private prisons warehousing our people have disallowed cultural practices such as hula, 'olelo Hawai'i (Hawaiian language), and celebration of important dates in Hawaiian culture. While Native American inmates are allowed to have sweat lodges, and inmates of other religions are allowed to practice their beliefs, Native Hawaiians have struggled to maintain who they are in these settings.

We have created a monster in Hawai'i, and this monster is very hungry. To satisfy his hunger, we enacted mandatory minimum sentences for crystal methamphetamine. In 1996, there were 249 women in prison, and by 2000, the women's prison population had more than doubled, with most serving mandatory sentences. The men's prison population rose similarly.

But we can change this crisis to an opportunity by employing many innovative programs to foster empathy in people once declared hopeless. Every day, these programs are proving that assertion false. Programs such as Maui Economic Opportunity's BEST program, modeled after San Francisco's successful Delancey Street program and T.J. Mahoney's Ka Hale Ho'ala Hou No Na Wahine (The Home of Reawakening for Women) program on O'ahu, are successful examples of what the right program can do to promote pro-social and healthy behavior.

But we need a change of heart — as well as a change of philosophy — to accomplish this.

Nationally, with 600,000 people exiting prison each year, it is essential that we start focusing on the opportunities that this crisis presents.