Visiting in Hawaii (HI DCR) | Prison Visitor Guide

Hawaii runs a unified system: the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation operates both the jails — the Community Correctional Centers, which hold mostly pretrial and short-sentence people — and the prisons that hold sentenced felons. Because it is unified, a person’s status and location can change, and someone awaiting trial may be held in the same facility system as someone serving a sentence. Visiting a person in Hawaii custody generally means getting on the approved visitor list and then arranging a visit with the specific facility, since each facility sets its own days, hours, and procedures.

Getting on the approved visitor list

Before anyone can visit, they must be on the inmate’s approved visitor list. The sequence is:

The inmate submits a proposed visitor list to the facility.
DCR runs a background check on each proposed visitor.
The facility approves or denies each visitor.

Once approved, an adult visitor presents a government-issued photo ID at the facility on the day of the visit. The same approved-list model applies at the out-of-state facility in Arizona, where the check is routed through Hawaii (see the Saguaro section).

Scheduling a visit at an in-state facility

Hawaii has no statewide online visit-booking portal. Visiting days and hours are set per facility, and each facility posts its own visitation schedule and operates a visitation hotline. The visitation lines listed by DCR include:

Halawa Correctional Facility (Aiea, Oahu) — visitation (808) 485-3550
Women’s Community Correctional Center (Kailua, Oahu) — visitation (808) 266-9675
Oahu Community Correctional Center (Honolulu) — visitation (808) 832-1633
Maui Community Correctional Center (Wailuku) — visitation (808) 243-5861
Hawaii Community Correctional Center (Hilo) — visitation (808) 933-0522
Kauai Community Correctional Center (Lihue) — visitation (808) 241-3050 ext. 244
Kulani Correctional Facility (Hilo, Hawaii Island) — visitation (808) 933-1922

Days and hours vary by facility and change. Rather than relying on a fixed schedule, families confirm the current visiting days, hours, and any required appointment by calling the facility’s visitation line.

In-state video visits

Hawaii’s communications vendor is Global Tel Link (GTL) / ViaPath, billed through ConnectNetwork. GTL tablets were rolled out across the in-state facilities and support video visitation during assigned times, alongside messaging and media. Tablets are provided to inmates at no charge; premium features such as video visits cost money.

For families who cannot travel to a facility, video visits by tablet are the practical remote option. Booking and the assigned video-visit times are handled per facility, so the facility’s visitation line is the place to confirm how its video visits are scheduled.

Inter-island travel

Three of the four jails and one of the four prisons are on neighbor islands rather than Oahu:

Maui Community Correctional Center — Wailuku, Maui
Hawaii Community Correctional Center — Hilo, Hawaii Island
Kauai Community Correctional Center — Lihue, Kauai
Kulani Correctional Facility — on the slope of Mauna Loa, about 20 miles southeast of Hilo, Hawaii Island

These are reachable from Oahu mainly by air. For families who cannot travel between islands, the in-state video visit by tablet is the remote alternative.

Where people are held by sex

Women in Hawaii custody — at maximum, medium, and minimum custody, both sentenced and pretrial — are held at the Women’s Community Correctional Center in Kailua, Oahu, the only women’s prison in the state. Despite “Community Correctional Center” in its name, it is classified as a prison rather than a jail.

Sentenced men are classified through the island jails and Halawa Correctional Facility, Hawaii’s largest male prison, and may then be placed at the minimum-security Waiawa Correctional Facility (Waipahu, Oahu), the minimum-security Kulani Correctional Facility (Hawaii Island), or the out-of-state Saguaro Correctional Center in Arizona. Visit type and scheduling at each facility follow that facility’s rules.

Saguaro Correctional Center (Arizona)

The single most distinctive feature of the Hawaii system is that roughly 800 sentenced Hawaii men (down from about 1,700 in the 2010s) are held on the U.S. mainland at the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, a private prison operated by CoreCivic under contract with Hawaii. Visiting, video, and approval for Saguaro follow a separate process from the in-state facilities.

In-person visiting requires travel to Arizona. For general-population inmates, visiting days are Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, from 8:00 a.m. to noon and 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. (Tuesday is reserved for restrictive-housing inmates.)

Approval is routed through Hawaii. The inmate submits the proposed visitor list, it is sent to Hawaii for an NCIC background check, and the facility’s chief of security approves or denies it. The process takes about 2 to 4 weeks.

Video visits for the Hawaii population at Saguaro are on Saturdays and are booked through the State of Hawaii mainland branch at (808) 837-8022 — not through ICSolutions, which is the path used by the Idaho and Montana populations also held at Saguaro.

Because approval takes about 2 to 4 weeks, travel arrangements depend on the visitor first being approved through the Hawaii NCIC process. Confirm approval and the current schedule with the facility and the mainland branch before making any commitments.

Verify Before Acting

Confirm the plan with the specific facility before traveling. Every visitor must first be on the inmate’s approved visitor list, and Hawaii has no statewide scheduler — each facility sets its own days and hours and runs its own visitation hotline, so confirm the current schedule by calling the facility directly. Bring a government-issued photo ID. For the roughly 800 men held at Saguaro in Arizona, visiting requires travel to Arizona, approval is routed through Hawaii via an NCIC check that takes about 2 to 4 weeks, and video visits for the Hawaii population are on Saturdays through the mainland branch at (808) 837-8022. Confirm the person’s current facility first, since neighbor-island and out-of-state facilities are reachable mainly by air. Visiting rules and schedules change; the facility and DCR are the authoritative sources.

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.