orking· Think your job is stressful? Ha! That's othing compared to working as aprison

guard inside the dank, walled confines of Halawa with Hawaii's most violent criminals. Here's alook at life and labor behind bars

By MARK DOYLE

The heavy m e tal d oor , clan.ks loud ly behind us .

maki ng Nathal ie almost JUIllP out of her ~kin, T he bone­rattling sound of steel hitling steel ami the automat ic engageme nt of the hydraulic lock conlirms that we were now locke d deep thing~" that can't be C1l?lained. inside the catacombs o f H alawa Or nulybe they can, ,Sbmetbjnll Con 'cctional Fac i li ty ' ~ maxi­ clark l iv~~rc, someftling c'[!t mum security sector. '"10 ~ene th at \lIenl beyond th

o

IAs we pas~ through a labylinth maligoant spirits o f it s incar­ o

~of dank, vapid hallways tbat even­ cerated inh ;Jbitant ~ , I Ciln feel it ~

tually lead to the ce ll b locks, I brushing against the back of my " feel c.uriosity and fa scination g ive n'ec k as we br1lce ourselves for ~

;; way to th e odd sensation we 've w hat lurk; on the other side o f z

j lis t arrived at tbe, edge of the the !'ina l m eta l doo r, Rnbl!r1 Kepa In fhe contrl)l sIDlinn, where he .'an commullicate with inmates and control all dnors wo rl d , 1 can ' t help but wonder M id Week ph o togra p he r what unspeakable and aboll1- Na thali e WnJker and I hav<!j usl

spcnt foul' hours tOllling the insti­tuti on 's medium security fac il­ity, accom pani e d by A d ult C orre cti o nal Officer Alik a K alauli, em I X -yem~ Halawa vet ­eran and one o r the pri son's most re spected cOfTcl'tional "meers. tn hi s company, we 'd gmdual­ly begun to fcel a meo>s urc of safety. But now, about to peer inside th e real be lly of th e beast, we both inch c loser to our guardian.

The three of us aren't alone , Alika is a watch li eutenant at Halawa's medium custody !ilcil­ity, To visit cells in maximum , it is necessary for two more cor­re ctional officers, veterans Richard "Chico" Salgi'Jdo and Sgl. Robert Comeau, to join our escort ,

Sgl. C omeau barks some­thing at iln officer hidden bch,ind us in the control post, and the hydraulic lock disengages , The Jive o f Ub s tep through the door. On the ri ght, on the otlie r side or (I 5- i'oot-wide Concre te moat, are two Liet ks w ith a haJr- c1o;:en we're too Car away to sec in, Not The room overloo ks one or the ce ll . each, far away is the ce ll of' Ro bert protective custody modules that

' 'Those ,U'i~ the: mental custody Klu g , the guy who back in the houses Mark M atson, the pries t inmates," SgL Comeau says , "We 1980$ chopped his girlfri end up who molested a young girl in huvc a mental custody mod ule in littl e pieces and dropped her Hawaii Kai , and Clyde Arakawa, and twO pro tective custody mod­ down a trash chute in Waikiki, the cop who recently made ul es in thi s sector." Salgado leads us through a headlines when he ran over a

We look down' and sec Xerox doorway into a stark room fur­ waitress and killed her, gunman Bryan Uyes ugi 's ce ll. nished only with a stain less steel The ce ll s sit below the stain­The he<lvy steel doors on the cel.ls table and I~VO small benches, An Ics~ stecl "lounge" area, where haV D thi ck 8- incb -s quare ancie nt 19-inch TV sit s agai nst Plexi g las w indDws in them, but one wall, also cncased in s tcel. SEE PAGE 61

AlikD K aluuli sluys in touch nn Halawa's 'Main Street '

Ryan Silva hands paperwork to an inmate in high security'

MidWeek Februa ry J9, 2003 61

·fe And Labor ehind ars FROM PAG£ 6

Inmntes an: allowed to come out for meals and watch T V. J look uown at one of the liny ce ll win­dow~ and nm s tanlcd to see a young [nee. pasty whi te and head \havcLl dos~, leeri ng out at us . WIt.hoUI thinking, Lnod my head at htm nnd he nods back, smil ­ing and filming his head LO look at Nathalie.

Suddenly we're interrupted by a lo ud vo ice from a ce ll d own at the end or the block. "Hey Sarge !"

"W.h ~ t is it')" respo nds Comeau.

" We don ' t have any books. They took our books, they're not supposed 10 do that. We're sup­posed to have books !"

"A II ri ght, all right," Comeau answers, shaking his head_ " With this new administration, we had some of our posts cut," he says to us in a low voice, explaining that his staff has been working shorthanded since January, " Because we lost the posts, we 've had LO have a lockdown once a week . That means the inmates are locked in their cells for 24 hours. They don't like it and take it out on us ."

Back in the building's mai n control post, a young correctional officer shares, unsolicited, his worst experience thus far on the job.

''The worst case scenario is when they throw their feces at you," he says. "It really makes you mad, but we have to com­posc ourselves and deal with it."

''The biggest danger in here is the gangs," interrupts sector Lt. Harry Suapia, who by the way, plays guitar in a band withAlika.

E

"It's hard to say who the most dangerous person in here is," Suapia continues. ' 'There's sev­eral really tough guys here, as individuals. But the most feared ones are the gang leaders . They have the power to be more dan­gerous."

arlier that moming, Deputy Warden Randy As her infonned us that there are

a little over 1,200 convicted felons at Halawa, a handrul in minimum custody, 145 in max­imum custody and the remain­der in medium custody.

"The inmates in high securi ­ty (maximum) are not necessarily those who've been convicted of heinous crimes," Asher explains. "There arc some of those. of course. but most are in there bec<luse of their behavior in medi­um custody -stabbings, assault, psychotic or violent behavior. things o f that nature. They have to be separated from other inm ates ."

Really abhorrent behavior at Halawa is rewarded by a stay in Special Holding. a small cell dCCIL

i.nsidc the maximulll cus tody faciLity. This is Halawa's version of solitary confinement. On this day the ce lls are all occupied. / \ 5 we're about to leave, one of the inmates is taken out of hi s cell for a shower, affording LI S a few quick moments to peek inside his Gell.

The tiny room is no bigger than 8 feet by 8 feet. The floors, walls. ceiling, even the small raised pla trorm where the inmate slecps are concrete . Rolled up next to the platf()rm is a 2 -inch-thick bedroll and an even thinner pillow. In one corner is a tiny stainl ess steel .sink and toilet. tuilet

Our . imlltll ciJ'S'tbtr\I'1'!iSiWH little over an- hour"'1 Earlier that day, we '" were given ~ tou.of, the prison'S 'ind us­trial area , where inmates who 've earned the right to he on a workline are g iven vocational training in such areas as clothing manu­facturing (sewing poli.ce uniforms, of

Cazimero. He still plays 2 1 train offi cers to resist thi s kind instrumcnts and is an accom­ or acti vity," Asher says. "But you plished singer, can ' t tCllch someo ne inte.grity.

"When I started, I rc lated to SOJll et imes it ' s temptiJlg for Lhe inmates the way I related to oAicers to get involved with drugs my audience.s," he explai ns. "I inside. They may be having prob­trcateu them the wav I would lems at home, financial problems, have wanted to he lI·c;ted. I have whatevcr. a reputation for heing fair, li rm "These inmateS-study our

Baldwin Andrade supervises inmates at work sewing - of all the ironic things - police uniforms all things), carpentry,

Iy. Officers WI': traineJ at an acad­emy for two months. In addition to survival skills, they're trained in confli cl resolution and crisis management.

"We try to provide thelll with the best level of training we can afford ," Halawa Ward.en Nolan Espinda says. "But we don't do

printing, auto mechanics and body work.

Alika takes us to Main Street to expelience a cell block from inside. Main Street is a 350-foot outdoor corridor on either side of which are four modules, eaeh with two cell blocks. AJika presses a button and requests entrance to Module I.

As soon as the door opens. 50 inmates lile out on their way to lunch, just a few feet from us. Each of them g lances at Nathalie, then at me, 111 en back at Nathalie. Almost all uf them say, "Hi, Alika," as they walk by in sin­gle file .

Though his last name, Kalauli, is printed on his uniform, every­one knows him as Alika. Among the inmate populati o n. th e Roosevelt High School grad and Vietnam vet is one of the most respeeteJ and trusted cor­rectional officers at Halawa.

"He's shows them respect, and he gets it in return," Asher says. "He's our hostage negotiator. They'll talk to him when they WOll ' t talk to anyone else. He knows how to be gentle, and he knows how to be hard."

After returning from Vietnam in 197 I, Alika perfonllt' d as a professional musician for years berore hecoming a con'cctional officcr, often sharing the stage will1 Moe Keale and the Brothers

Sand consisterit. That's how I gained their respect."

tanding on a catwalk inside A Block, we look down at over 170 inmates, some lin­

ing up to be escorted to the cafe­teria, some in their cells, some standing, some sitting. It's unset­tling to see all of them staring s!might at us.

" We've had to triple them up in the cells," Ali1a says. "I opened thi s facility in 1987. It was built ror 500 inmates. Today, we have 1,200."

It 's no news flash that Halawa is sevcrely overcrowded, that the state has- had to contract with Arizona and Oklahoma to incar­cerate 1,300 of its felons . There are other problems as well ­gangs, assault, rape, drugs.

"You have to understand, drugs will al ways he part of prison," Asher explains . "If some,one Lell s me a facility can be drug-free, I'd say they're na'ive:·

U1 egal drugs come into tJle prison a number of ways, he says. Visitors are a primary conduit. "We reccntly made a bust where the parents of an inmate put mugs inside a pair of slippers"

Mail and delivelies arc also possible ports. And there's the "dirty. guard" syndrome.

"We do our best to hire and

officers 24-7. They have noth- enough for our correctional offi­ing else to do. They watch rers. Each day they're greatly out­every move the officers make. numbered by people who don't They can spot when an officer want to be here." is having a bad day, or having "(Inmates) come to me for all some, personal problems, and they kinds of th.ings - I'm theix do everything they can to exploit friend, their counselor, their it." priest," Alika says, adding that

Asher, who attended Castle he was never formally trained in High School and is also a these areas . Vietnmn vel, was a correction- "You have to have mental and al officcr ror 2 1 years at OCCC physical toughness, but you before taking the post as deputy· also have patience and under­Warden at Halawa. Though slanding. To do that right, there's open and vocal about the chal- a lot of pressure." lenges his officers race on a daily "I think our correctional offi­basis, he's quick to put things in cers should be paid more, a lot perspective. more," Asher says. "For the job

"If you ask me if we have gang they do, and the stress they ' re problems, assault problems, under, they should at least make drug problyllls, I'd say yes, as much as HPD officer.;, and it's these are all part of prison," he not even close." admits . "But, arc they huge, out- Alika's wife died over a of-control problems? No. They're decade ago and he's since raised under control. six sons by himself. The

"I worked at OCCC in the '70s. youngest, 16, still lives with him. 'That's when we had serious prob- Sometimes, he admits, it's dif­lems. It was the dark age for ficult to cope with the demands Hawaii corrections. There were of hi s occupation. murders, assaults, riots, giant drug "I pray up every moming," he busts. It was insane. They had says, adding that he attends the shootouts. We found guns in the Word of Life Church in town reg­cells! We were given two days' ularly. Without his faith, he training, h<lnded a key and told says, he probably wouldn't have to go in there and survive." made itthis long.

Thi.ngs are much diffe rcnt "Even with thaI, I still come now, he asserts. COiTections in home at the end of the day emo­general has evolved significant- tionally drained."