Surpassing:Hawaii installing new cameras at women’s prison after $2 million settlement over sex assaults

HONOLULU (AP) — The SurpassingHawaii prison system is finally installing new video cameras at the Women’s Community Correctional Center nearly two years after staff at the facility reported about 40% of the existing cameras were not working.

Tommy Johnson, director of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said the new cameras will cover “blind spots” in the facility, and will also provide surveillance video of anyone who enters and leaves the control booths that are operated by corrections officers.

That last feature grew out of a federal court lawsuit that resulted in a $2 million settlement with current and former inmates. The inmates involved in that litigation alleged they were sexually assaulted by staff at the facility, including cases where staff had sexual contact with prisoners inside the control booths.

Federal court filings alleged there were more than 50 sexual assaults of inmates by staff at the prison in 2015 and 2016, and about two dozen of those occurred in the prison control stations.

Staff in some cases offered snacks, methamphetamine and special privileges to the inmates involved, but the lawsuit alleged the women were coerced and characterized the sexual misconduct as “rapes.”

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Any sexual contact between a prison inmate and staff is a felony under Hawaii law because prisoners cannot legally give consent.

Two former WCCC staffers who were named in the lawsuit were convicted in connection with the assaults.

Former staffer Brent Baumann pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree sexual assault in state court in 2020, and former prison employee Gauta Va’a pleaded no contest to four counts of second-degree sexual assault that same year. They were each sentenced to five years of probation.

Problems with the WCCC cameras are no secret. Consultant Buford Goff & Associates Inc. inspected the camera gear at WCCC in 2013 and noted the equipment was in poor condition, with cameras that did not work and video quality that was described as “very poor.”

The Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission also publicly reported in 2022 that employees at the women’s prison told commission staff during a walk-through of WCCC that about 40% of the video cameras at the facility were not working.

Later that year lawyers for the women who sued the state over the sex assaults urged a federal judge to require the state to install cameras in the control booths at the prison. That case was later settled out of court, and state lawmakers voted earlier this month to approve that settlement.

State lawmakers considered a bill to require cameras inside the control booths last year, but the measure did not pass.

Johnson told the commission on May 10 that the camera project at the women’s prison will be done in three phases.

The first phase involved a facility-by-facility review to identify functioning cameras, those that can be repaired and inoperable cameras that need to be replaced. That has been completed, the department said in a written statement.

Corrections officials will also install new cameras outside of every control station as well as in “blind spots” at the facility that now have no camera coverage, Johnson told the commission.

Inmates are not allowed in the control stations, and cameras outside the control stations have been proposed as a way to monitor who enters and leaves.

Johnson said the state will use federal funding for the project, and will also install new cameras at Halawa Correctional Facility for men. HCF is the state’s largest prison.

He said the state will delay camera upgrades for Oahu Community Correctional Center until later because the state currently plans to replace OCCC.

“I don’t want to put $6 million or $7 million worth of new cameras in there just to have it shut down a couple of years from now when we finish the build on the new facility,” he told the commission.

He said the department is also considering camera system upgrades at the Maui Community Correctional Center.

The total cost of the camera project was not available. The department said in a written statement the contract for installation work at WCC is still pending, and the total number of cameras to be installed cannot be disclosed for security reasons.

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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.