http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0708azprisons0708.html Hawaii set to move mainland inmates to Arizona prisons
Associated Press
Jul. 8, 2006 12:00 AM
HONOLULU - Hawaii's inmates housed on the mainland will be consolidated into two prisons in Arizona under newly signed contracts with a private prisons company.
The state will send more than 2,500 inmates to the prisons run by Corrections Corp. of America at a cost of more than $50 million a year.
State officials say the new contracts to house all its mainland prisoners in Arizona will help families who want to visit their relatives while also making it easier for the state to keep track of them. [Just how on earth does moving a prisoner from Hawaii 3,000 miles to the Arizona desert make it easier for their relatives to visit them????]
The new 1,896-bed Saguaro Correctional Center under construction in Eloy will house all the woman and most of the men currently held in other prisons in Kentucky, Mississippi and Oklahoma, said Shari Kimoto of the mainland branch of the Hawaii Department of Public Safety.
An additional 500 beds will be rented at the new Red Rock Correctional Center nearby.