The latest class of adult correctional officer recruits graduated on Friday and will be assigned to facilities across the state, including one new officer at the Maui Community Correctional Center. Photo courtesy Public Safety Department

The Maui News

Fourteen new correctional officer recruits, including one on Maui, graduated from basic training on Friday and will begin their careers at facilities across the state.

The state Department of Public Safety held a graduation ceremony for the new class of adult correctional officers at the Neal Blaisdell Center in Honolulu on Friday. The recruits completed an 11-week training course that included more than 400 hours of classroom time and physical training. Recruits learned about standards of conduct, professionalism and ethics, report writing, interpersonal communications, maintaining security, crisis intervention, security threat groups (gangs), mental health, first aid, firearms and self-defense tactics.

One officer was assigned to the Maui Community Correctional Center, while another four were assigned to the Hawaii Community Correctional Center, four to the Oahu Community Correctional Center, three to the Halawa Correctional Facility and two to the Women’s Community Correctional Center.

Public Safety Director Tommy Johnson said that training sometimes spanned 10 to 12 hours a day, weekends and nighttimes, and that the fact that the class started and ended with the same 14 recruits “is a testament to their dedication, commitment and sheer tenacity.”

He said that when he first met the recruits, “I told them in their careers that they would face situations that would test the content of their character, their commitment and their courage of conviction,” Johnson said during the graduation ceremony. “The challenge for them is to do what is right. In doing so they will have the greatest impact on public safety and gain the respect and admiration of their peers, supervisors and the public we so willingly serve.”