ACLU of Hawaii Legal Director Mateo Caballero and Advocacy Coordinator Mandy Finlay spoke last week at the University of Hawaii Maui College about safeguarding civil rights during the Trump administration. The Maui News / CHRIS SUGIDONO photo

Knowing your rights and advocating for civil liberties were two key points pushed by the ACLU of Hawaii during a presentation last week that focused on mass incarceration and police surveillance.

Legal Director Mateo Caballero, a Harvard Law School graduate, spoke to about 60 people at the meeting about the “explosion” of prisoners in Hawaii since 1978. The state inmate population has increased eightfold in that time, going from 727 to 5,804, Caballero said.

The ACLU filed a complaint earlier this month with the U.S. Justice Department citing overcrowding in Hawaii prisons, including Maui Community Correctional Center — which it claimed was the worst. The ACLU claims the prison is at more than 200 percent of capacity, but state Department of Public Safety officials have disputed the total capacity of the facility.

Caballero said the Maui prison has four and sometimes five inmates per cell, with one or two sleeping on the floor just inches from the toilet. He said cells lack basic hygiene supplies, including toilet paper and soap.

“There’s almost no psychiatric staff or facilities,” he said. “They leave them to fend for themselves.”

Lack of staffing and security have led to inmates being kept in their cells for up to 11 hours at a stretch, Caballero said. He said the issues are systemic and have affected not only the inmates, but the guards and staff.

“These kinds of conditions are inhumane,” he said.

Hawaii has passed a number of prison reforms over the past two decades, but none has helped reduce the number of people behind bars, Caballero said. He said that widespread reform would decrease mass incarceration and cited a few policy changes would help: decriminalizing and legalizing drugs; reforming mandatory minimum sentences and repeat offender statutes; reclassifying some crimes; reforming bail-setting practices; reforming parole and probation; finding alternatives to incarceration; and funding social programs rather than overfunding the criminal justice system.

Advocacy Coordinator Mandy Finlay advocated for police reform in light of police altercations around the world. She encouraged residents to speak to their County Council members about creating legislation that would force the Maui Police Department to get approval from the council and hear testimony from residents if they want to start using surveillance technology.

“This type of technology should not be used unless we the community are setting it ourselves,” Finlay said.

Issues raised at the meeting concerned homelessness, Native Hawaiian sovereignty and gathering signatures for the GMO initiative.

One resident asked where they would be able to solicit signatures for petitions because they were not allowed to at shopping centers. He wondered if there could be free-speech zones in malls, which often serve as a gathering place for many people.

ACLU officials said the Hawaii Supreme Court does not recognize malls as a public forum, so petitioners would not be protected. Petitioners would have to be more creative in gathering signatures or stick to the public places such as sidewalks, parks and public parking lots.

For more information on the ACLU of Hawaii and access to its First Amendment Toolkit, visit https://acluhi.org/.

* Chris Sugidono can be reached at csugidono@mauinews.com.