CAYETANO SAYS STATE SHOULD TREAT, NOT INCARCERATE, DRUG OFFENDERS

He Says He'd Rather Build Schools Than Prisons

Gov. Ben Cayetano said he has had a change of heart about the importance of
adding prison space in Hawaii and is now grateful his proposal for a new
prison on the Big Island fell through.

He said he can stay true to his original campaign pledge to build schools
instead of prisons.

Cayetano said he has become more convinced that the state should pursue
alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders.

He said he was inspired by California voters' passage last month of
Proposition 36, which requires treatment instead of jail or prison for
first-or second-time nonviolent drug offenders.

Cayetano said he wants to study whether Hawaii would benefit from a similar
initiative.

"The drug problem is so difficult to deal with. Incarceration cannot be the
answer," he said in a meeting with Neighbor Island newspaper editors Friday.

He said drug addiction is an illness.

"It doesn't discriminate -- it affects all social classes," Cayetano said.

This summer, Cayetano vetoed a bill that would have allowed public employee
unions to bid to operate a privately built prison on the Big Island, saying
a union-run prison would be too expensive.

He said the state will have to continue sending inmates to privately run
mainland facilities to address the problem of prison overcrowding.

Proposition 36 was bitterly opposed by many working in California's legal
and law enforcement fields but was supported by 60 percent of the state's
voters.

It is the largest and most ambitious drug treatment program in U.S.
history, providing $120 million a year for counties to pay for drug
treatment, an amount many say is not enough to treat thousands of
additional offenders in an already overburdened treatment system.

The measure goes into effect July 1.