HALAWA — The number of suspects surrendering to authorities on outstanding warrants has dropped 80 percent in the few weeks since the sheriff's department's receiving desk moved from District Court downtown to Halawa prison.

"A lot of people are now hesitant to turn themselves in," said Sheriff's Sgt. Mevet Azada, who is in charge of the newly relocated receiving desk inside Halawa's secured "special needs" unit.

"We used to get five people per day turning themselves in, now we'll get one — if we're lucky," Azada said.

The receiving desk is used to book, photograph and fingerprint suspects on their way to court or to O'ahu Community Correctional Center and is used by sheriff's deputies, state narcotics enforcement officers, attorney general investigators and others.

Department of Public Safety officials will begin monitoring the effect that the move is having on operations, such as the extra mileage and time that sheriff's deputies and other state law enforcement officials are now logging to transport suspects to and from Halawa.

"When we were in District Court, a deputy didn't have to go far," Azada said.

At the urging of the judiciary, Public Safety officials moved out of O'ahu District Court on Nov. 15 and found a temporary home inside a storage area inside Halawa Prison.

The space is nearly identical in size to the old 540-square-foot receiving desk in District Court but needed to be fitted with secure doors and cells, which were made in the prison shop, said Maj. Dallen Paleka, Halawa's chief of security.

Last year, the judiciary sent a letter asking Department of Public Safety officials to "fulfill its obligations agreed to 16 years earlier by relocating all functions relating to law enforcement," judiciary spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa said in a statement. "Although the issue involves a relatively small amount of space in the courthouse, the arrest and booking of individuals is a law enforcement function which is inconsistent with the functions of the judiciary."

The judiciary is now considering using the newly vacated space to house security monitoring equipment and the sheriff's deputies responsible for courthouse security, Kitagawa said.

The move would allow the judiciary to move its concession and identification processing unit to the plaza area "for the convenience of court users," she said.

Public Safety officials considered places other than Halawa to temporarily house the receiving desk but no other options were better, said DPS spokeswoman Louise Kim McCoy.

O'ahu Community Correctional Center is closer to District Court and Circuit Court, where sheriff's deputies often have to take suspects, but is overcrowded, overburdened and tight on space, she said.

"With the clock ticking, we felt this was the quickest, temporary fix," Kim McCoy said. "It was not being used so we wouldn't displace bodies. The space was vacant."

But being inside Halawa means that prison officials have to open and close secure doors and adhere to rules that prohibit inmates from making audio or visual contact with suspects being booked.

The receiving desk is adjacent Halawa's special needs section that houses mentally ill prisoners, gang members and inmates facing long prison terms whom prison officials want to watch closely, Paleka said.

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.