Mail in Hawaii (HI DCR) | Prison Visitor Guide

Key info

Personal mail goes directly to the facility. Hawaii DCR does not use an off-site mail-scanning vendor. Letters, cards, and photos are sent to the prison or jail where the person is housed, where staff inspect them.

Address it to the inmate at their facility. Use the inmate’s full name and ID number, the facility name, and the facility’s own mailing address. Each facility has a different address, and Waiawa and Kulani use P.O. Box mailing addresses.

Books and magazines must come directly from a publisher or approved vendor. Friends and family cannot mail in books, food, or packages by personal mail.

Mail to Saguaro in Arizona follows that prison’s rules. Sentenced Hawaii men are held at the CoreCivic-run Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona; mail there goes to a different address and is handled separately — see below.

How personal mail works

Hawaii’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) runs a unified jail-and-prison system, and incoming personal mail goes directly to the facility where the person is housed. DCR does not use an off-site scanning vendor, so mail is sent to the prison or jail, where staff open and inspect it for contraband before delivery. This puts Hawaii among the minority of states that still route physical mail directly to the facility rather than scanning it off-site. There is no limit on how many letters a person may receive. The governing policy is COR.15.02 (correspondence).

How to address mail

Address personal mail with the inmate’s full name and ID number, the facility name, and the facility’s mailing address:

[Full name and ID number]
[Facility name]
[Facility mailing address]
[City, HI ZIP]

Look up the exact mailing address for the specific facility on its facility page, since each Hawaii DCR facility has a different address. Two facilities use a P.O. Box mailing address for inmate mail, which is distinct from their street or location address:

Waiawa Correctional Facility — P.O. Box 1839, Pearl City, HI 96782
Kulani Correctional Facility — P.O. Box 4459, Hilo, HI 96720

What gets mail rejected

Personal mail is rejected when it fails DCR’s envelope and content rules. Common reasons mail is returned or refused include:

A missing sender name — the sender’s first and last name and a return address are required.
Envelopes or contents with stickers, ink stamps, glitter, glue, drawings, bookmarks, or lipstick or kiss marks.
Inappropriate or prohibited content.

Suspicious mail can be delayed while it is reviewed. Food, packages, and personal book mailings are not accepted through personal mail.

Books, magazines, and publications

Books, magazines, and other publications must be sent directly from a publisher or an approved vendor — they cannot be mailed in by friends or family. The inmate may need to submit a request form before an order is placed. The governing policies are COR.15.02 (correspondence) and COR.15.05 (publications). Contact the facility for its current process and approved-vendor information.

Photos

Photographs are subject to per-facility limits on how many may be sent or kept, and these limits are not published consistently. Confirm the current photo rules — counts, sizes, and any restrictions — with the specific facility before sending photographs.

Mail to Saguaro Correctional Center (Arizona)

Sentenced Hawaii men are held under contract at the Saguaro Correctional Center, a CoreCivic-operated prison in Eloy, Arizona. Mail to a person at Saguaro is addressed to the inmate at the facility:

[Inmate name]
Saguaro Correctional Center
1250 East Arica Road
Eloy, AZ 85131

Saguaro is operated by CoreCivic, not by DCR, and its mail handling follows that prison’s own rules. Whether incoming mail at Saguaro is scanned or photocopied is not confirmed in published sources; confirm the current mail rules directly with the facility before sending. Money is never enclosed with letters at Saguaro — funds go through a separate process. See Sending Money for how money is sent to a person at Saguaro.

Verify Before Acting

Sources

This page is compiled from the following publicly available sources. Policies change without notice — confirm current details with the facility before relying on them.