Ann Botticelli This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Hawaii Public Television - Island Insights-Transcript 316

   www.khet.org/local_productions - [Cached]

   Published on: 2/20/2003   Last Visited: 2/20/2003

   Host: Ann Botticelli
   
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   BOTTICELLI: Aloha, welcome to PBS Hawaii and "Island Insights". I'm Ann Botticelli. We have just entered the new legislative session with a new administration and there are some interesting proposals for Hawaii's law enforcement this year including a plan to build three new prisons, a drug court and a suggested change in the state's wiretapping law. Good ideas?
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   BOTTICELLI: Okay, and we'll get to those three in just a second. We'll let the Senator tell us: what is your priority this year?
   
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   BOTTICELLI: I guess the broader question then, for myself and for the viewers is, there seems to be a lot of issues on the table. Whether or not you're talking about two separate departments within Corrections or drug courts or the Sheriff's Office issue. Is our Judiciary or law enforcement system in need of a really major overhaul? Is that what I'm hearing? Are there things, all of these different proposals, is it because something's really wrong with the system as it is now, or--
   
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   BOTTICELLI: Let's talk about that a little bit. Talk about these new prisons and bringing people back to prisons in Hawaii and why do you think that's necessary?
   
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   BOTTICELLI: What you seem to be saying is if we keep people here at home, we have a better chance of rehabilitating them. If we send off them to the mainland, they go off and they're gone, they're lost. They come home and they're not helped?
   
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   BOTTICELLI: Could I just -- Explain the three new prisons and the proposal for them. How would they look, and what would they do, and who would go to which prison?
   
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   BOTTICELLI: I'm talking about an article that was in the paper not too long ago where Department of Public Safety, James Propotnik, talked about new prisons for Hawaii at a legislative committee.
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   BOTTICELLI: The ice problem though is-- I mean everybody acknowledges is a terrible epidemic in Hawaii and how do you get to the heart of it? How do you get to the very start of it and kill it there? Is it supply? Is it-- What is it?
   
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   BOTTICELLI: Because they're already so damaged.
   
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   BOTTICELLI: And then as you go forward and as you have your treatment programs and you try to get them back into the community, then it becomes, it seems to me, your issue to decide how the society is going to accept them back in and what's out there for them when they return.
   
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   BOTTICELLI: As we're going through this session, and we're at the beginning of it, and we have an economy that's troubled and the potential of war which could obviously hurt us very badly-- What do you think, and I'll ask you this. What will come out of this session, do you think or can you put something out of this session that will really make a step toward combating this problem?
   
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   BOTTICELLI: And that is? Explain that real quickly, Weed and Seed.
   
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   BOTTICELLI: And you'd like to take that out of the traffic fines?
   
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   BOTTICELLI: That's a whole different issue.
   
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   BOTTICELLI: All right, and we have about a minute left and I'm going to let the Lieutenant Governor respond to that. Do you think that's a good idea?
   
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   BOTTICELLI: Okay, thank you very much. We're out of time. We had a lot to talk about, didn't get to a lot of it. But thank you both for coming. Pay attention to your Legislature because there's a lot going on there.