Attorney General Gwen Tauiliili-Langkilde faced questioning about the legality of the Governor’s Executive Order to merge the Department of Corrections and the Department of Public Safety when a law has been enacted to make the Department of Corrections a stand alone department.

House Speaker Savali Talavou Ale raised the issue during the budget review for the Attorney General’s Office.

The AG explained that the Executive Order for the merger was issued in response to an emergency situation at the Territorial Correctional Facility..it did not have enough manpower and there were regular inmate escapes. In one incident inmates were found hiding in the trunk of a vehicle belonging to a prison guard.

Describing the personnel shortage at the TCF before the merger, the AG said the prison population was 250 to 300 and there were only 30 prison guards, working 12 hours shifts.

She said the Executive Order was intended as a temporary plan in response to the emergency.

Senator Togiola Tulafono asked why the Governor didn’t submit a supplemental budget request during Fiscal Year 2025 to address the manpower shortage. He observed that there was also no funding request to hire additional personnel for the Dept of Corrections in the Fiscal Year 2026 budget. Togiola remarked that DPS also has a manpower shortage and in his view one emergency has been solved by creating a worse emergency.

The AG said she did understand the funding issue between DPS and Dept of Corrections and this would be a question for the DPS budget review.

She said they are working on trying to reduce the prison population and also seek grants to rebuild the TCF and equip it with the necessary resources.

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According to the AG’s testimony, 33T% of the inmates are non US nationals and one way to reduce the inmate numbers is to return some to their countries depending on their court approved sentences.