A Night on ‘the Value of Hawaii’ – Education and Prison Systems
Education or prisons? They’re both funded by taxpayer money that has to be shared, so who gets what and why?
To help answer the question, Civil Beat hosted a Value of Hawaii discussion that covered Hawaii’s education and prison systems. At first this might strike you as a strange mix. But we found out that the relationship is both important and interesting to the community here in Hawaii.
Our headquarters were overflowing with students, teachers, parents and other various professionals. One class of 18 from the University of Hawaii was so eager to participate in the discussion that they held half of their class at our offices before the event began. Another eight students in American Samoa attended the discussion via a web-cast. Altogether there were approximately 70 people in attendance, and at one point 50 viewers were participating in the discussion online.
The topics ranged from whether an appointed or elected board of education would be more beneficial to Hawaii, to the high number of people incarcerated in our state. The guests and speakers shared their insight and their personal stories while answering questions about the topic. We even shared a few laughs. Here are a few notable facts from the night:
- In 1970 there were 300 inmates in Hawaii with 5 percent recidivism. Today we have 6,000 inmates with closer to 50 percent recidivism.
- Hawaii’s corrections budget is $250 million. Hawaii’s Department Of Education K-12 budget is $2.2 billion.
- For every $1 spent on preventative crime treatment, Hawaii saves $18 later on (incarceration costs).
You can find individual biographies on the speakers below, as well as watch the video of the event in its entirety. Afterward, I invite you to join the chatter in the The Value of Hawaii discussion.
Video
Our Speakers
Kat Brady is Coordinator of Community Alliance on Prisons, a community initiative promoting smart justice strategies for Hawaii’s lawbreakers for more than a decade.
Meda Chesney-Lind is Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and the author of numerous books on imprisonment in the United States, including Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Incarceration (New Press, 2003), and most recently, Beyond Bad Girls: Gender, Violence and Hype (Routledge, 2009), with Katherine Irwin.
Mari Matsuda is author of two of the hundred most-cited law review articles in the United States. She is a founder of Critical Race Theory, a professor of law, and a proud product of Hawaii public schools, including Manoa Elementary, Stevenson Intermediate, Roosevelt High School, and the William S. Richardson School of Law. She is the author, with Charles Lawrence, of a forthcoming book entitled The Last Public Place: Essays on Race, Education, and Democracy.
Neal Milner is Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is also a political analyst. He headed the UH Manoa Ombuds Office from its beginning in 2006 until the office was shut down in 2009.
Join Us For The Next One
Our next live event will be on Tuesday October 26, at 5:30 p.m. We will continue our coverage on the Value of Hawaii as we focus on climate change in Hawaii. Make sure to take a look at the details on our Events Tab and RSVP to events@civilbeat.com if you’d like to join us.
