OAHU PRISON (OCCC)

? by Kyryll Ushakov

Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC) was opened in the late 1970s/early 1980s. I was called to pray for the inmates in this prison. This place is a medium-security state prison in Honolulu, Hawaii. It houses adult male prisoners (above the age of 18) convicted of crimes under Hawaiian state law.

Most of the prisoners serving time in this prison are sentenced to more than a year’s imprisonment and charged for serious crimes.

? by Charles Y.

The facility is located in Honolulu on 16 acres. It has about 950 beds and houses pre-trial detainees.

OCCC provides reintegration programming for male convicted felons in addition to its jail functions. If we talk about its facilities, then some would give five stars and some will provide one star. Months ago, a piece of news was breaking that jail is being planned to relocate. Last year, Gov. David Ige announced that he was going to rebuild the facility on a new site.

OCCC resides in the Kalihi neighborhood and is built to hold 954 people, but the numbers of the inmates were crowded with 1,222 detainees when I took a visit.

? by google map

The new prison is planning to have beds for 1,335 inmates to relocate from this current site to Halawa, near the Halawa correctional facility.

Moving OCCC to Halawa is also a tremendous opportunity to reposition Kalihi neighborhood for the future when the land along the rail route could be used for new economic development, affordable housing, and open spaces as envisioned by the community.

The project is estimated to cost $525 million, which includes the new jail facility and the relocation of the quarantine station. Whereas, The jail’s female inmates are planned to be transferred to the Women’s Community Correctional Center in Kailua. This project funding is to be protected from the Legislatures and is hoped to be completed by 2023.