Prisoners hang a sign from Old Oahu Prison cellblock at OCCC calling attention to hunger strike protest a few months after the shakedown.
This is my most memorable story about Randy Kalahiki, including details never told publicly before.
It’s a follow-up to my recent post about the Kalahiki brothers, Randy and Mel.
Hoomana School
Back in 1981, both Meda and I were both teaching classes in the Hoomana prison school offered through Honolulu Community College.
Meda had been teaching full-time at HCC since about 1974, and by this time was a veteran at OCCC. She had done an evaluation of Ike Na Paahao, an outreach program by prisoners who visited classrooms to warn students away from crime, a version of the then-popular “Scared Straight” programs. After that evaluation, she taught several classes of at OCCC over a couple of years, earning a reputation and a following among those in custody.
Ian’s OCCC ID
The Hoomana classroom was deep within OCCC and the whole teaching experience, which included getting through the front entrance (where the security door was often not functioning and was simply left propped open), then taking a long roundabout walk to and from the classroom, proved to be quite educational for us as visiting faculty as well as for the paahao who attended class as students. Everyone in the facility routinely referred to those in custody as paahao, using the Hawaiian word for prisoner.
In mid-December, 1981, prison officials launched a large multi-day “shakedown,” a mass sweep of OCCC targeting weapons, drugs, and other contraband. It was conducted by correctional officers and police, aided by a number of the more hardened guards from the high security prison at Halawa.
Within days, we started getting phone calls from family members of inmates who passed along details of alleged beatings and violence initiated by guards during the shakedown, even while some prison administrators and other state officials reportedly stood by and watched.
After the shakedown was finished and family visits were being restored, we quickly decided to seek out additional information about the rumors of official violence.
We drove out to OCCC early in the morning on one of the first two visiting days, and approached people as they left the facility. We introduced ourselves to visitors, and solicited information they had been told about incidents involving official violence during the shakedown. Some reporting injuries they had seen, bruises, etc. The reception was very positive, and word of our presence quickly spread and brought forward other informants.
Using details learned that had been cross-checked from multiple interviews, Meda and I wrote a brief 4-page report describing alleged use of excessive force, including names and descriptions of injuries. This while officials were publicly denying any incidents like this had taken place.
I had already stepped down as program director of the small Honolulu office of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, but was part of a small criminal justice task force formed to discusss issues in Hawaii’s prisons and plan appropriate Quaker responses.
We naively thought that when state officials saw our compilation of the more serious and better documented allegations, they would quickly order an investigation.
We were absolutely wrong.
(Next: How the report ended up on the governor’s desk—and how this led to Randy Kalahiki contacting an organized crime figure.)
