The Public Safety department and Judiciary data was included as part of a state report to the Department of Interior showing that Hawaii spent $114 million on all services for islanders from the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau in 2010. It was submitted August 9 by Governor Neil Abercrombie who seeking reimbursement from the U.S. federal government.
It cost Public Safety $872,820 in 2010 to handle the 2,117 FAS citizens arrested and the 249 in jail.
The Hawaii state Judiciary said it spent $132,017 on translation costs in 2010 — a nearly 100 percent increase since 2006.
“In fiscal year 2010, the Judiciary provided interpreters in these languages for nearly 3,500 proceedings, which indicates more than double the amount of proceedings that used interpreters in these languages in fiscal year 2006,” said the Judiciary’s report.
“Because of the limited pool of interpreters in these languages, the judiciary continuously struggles to meet the growing language interpreting needs of court users from Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palauan migrant communities.”
While people from the FAS composed of about one percent of Hawaii’s population, the funds the judiciary spent on translation services in 2010 amounted to 32 percent of the total the judiciary spent for interpretation services for all languages.
The report notes there were 326 court proceedings involving Marshall Islanders in 2006. That number almost doubled by last year, increasing to 555. Court proceedings involving islanders from Chuuk more than doubled from 1,175 in 2006 to 2,685 in 2010. A total of 182 Pohnpeians, 58 Kosraens and 15 Yapese were involved in court proceedings in 2010. Only four Palauans were the subject of court proceedings last year.
The Public Safety report shows a trend of increasing arrests and incarcerations, although the number of Marshall Islanders arrested and incarcerated in 2010 dipped slightly compared to 2009.
Arrests of FSM citizens more than doubled between 2006 and 2010, going from 775 to 1,585. The number convicted of crimes over the same increased from 327 in 2006 to 555 last year.
In 2006, 214 Marshall Islanders were arrested and 100 convicted, the report said. Those numbers more than doubled to 496 and 211, respectively, last year.
Palauans show the smallest numbers of arrests and convictions. In 2006, 21 were arrested and seven convicted of crimes. That number increased modestly to 36 and nine, respectively, in 2010.
