HONOLULU — State authorities are looking to gather Hawaii's nearly 1,900 prisoners on the mainland into three facilities run by the same company in Pinal County.
The inmates would be sent to the Florence Correctional Facility in Florence and two new multimillion-dollar prisons at Eloy.
The Florence facility already houses 60 men from Hawaii.
Corrections Corporation of America dedicated its new $82.5 million, 1,596-bed Red Rock Correctional Center in Eloy on Tuesday. And construction began last month on the company's 1,896-bed Saguaro Correctional Center.
Frank Lopez, director of Hawaii's Department of Public Safety, was in Eloy for the new prison's dedication.
But while prison company officials have said Red Rock will house inmates from both Alaska and Hawaii, state officials in the islands said a deal with the company had not yet been completed.
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Louise Kim McCoy, a spokeswoman for the department, confirmed that discussions are ongoing with Corrections Corporation of America about moving male and female inmates being held in Kentucky, Oklahoma and Mississippi.
Hawaii already pays the company $40 million a year to house its prisoners. And this year an additional $12 million was allocated by the Legislature to transfer 676 more inmates to the mainland.
