WAILUA — Kaua’i Community Correctional Center inmates Randall Diorec, Marlen Schimmelfennig, Travis Kono and Michael Swearingin could have shortened their jail time through parole. But all of them have opted to remain with the center’s Lifetime Stand program because they
WAILUA — Kaua’i Community Correctional Center inmates Randall Diorec, Marlen Schimmelfennig, Travis Kono and Michael Swearingin could have shortened their jail time through parole. But all of them have opted to remain with the center’s Lifetime Stand program because they say it will provide them with the means to stay clear of crime and lead productive lives.
The program allows them, they say, to find out who they are, identify problems that landed them in jail and how to solve them in a nurturing environment created by warden Neal Wagatsuma and the jail staff. Diorec, 36, of Kapa’a, has been in jail for most of the last 17 years. He said if he doesn’t stay in the program, he will probably will end up in jail again. “I need to work on myself more, to be independent of the system,” he said. Diorec joined the program in 1996 with no serious intent of changing. “I joined to play the system,” he said. In June this year, he rejoined the program, but with a different perspective. Being in the program, he said, has made him realize that he “spent so many years on the wrong side.” He said he wants to take care of what is more important to him: His wife and five children. “Before, my criminal mentality was that my friends always come first,” he said. “I don’t even know where they are any more. My family comes first.” The program has taught him not to blame his family or others for misfortunes that befall him, he said. Diorec said he also wants to stay in the program because Wagatsuma believes in him. “He is being truthful to me,” the inmate said. Diorec is serving a 20-year jail sentence for theft, robbery and kidnapping. At age 18, he was arrested for running an auto chop shop on Oahu and selling stolen vehicles. His last crime was in 1996, when he was arrested for breaking into rental vehicles. Fellow inmate Schimmelfennig, a Miss Hawaii in 1972 and a former Miss Kaua’i, is serving a 3 1/2-year jail sentence on a conviction of driving under the influence. In June 1998, while coming down from the effects of drugs as she drove down a road in Koloa, she struck two elderly ladies who were on an early-morning walk. The two women have recovered from their injuries. Schimmelfennig was initially sentenced to 90 days in jail, but that was bumped up after she left a correctional facility on Oahu and was rearrested for a probation violation. Schimmelfennig said her participation in the Lifetime Stand program has filled her with remorse over the 1998 accident and has encouraged her to become a better person. She joined the program in September 1999 and wants to remain in it when her jail sentence is up in 18 months. Schimmelfennig said the program has made her take a look at life for the first time. “I am 50 years old, and I am only learning about life itself,” she said. The program has made her realize she has been selfish most of her life and that she has taken for granted all the “good things in life that I was blessed with.” “I had everything. I was Miss Hawaii, a Miss Kaua’i—a family, a husband,” she said. “Doors just opened for me.” From 1972 to 1992, she traveled throughout the world as an “ambassador of aloha” for Hawaiian Airlines, she said. But Hurricane Iniki changed her life. The storm wrecked her home in South Kaua’i and strained family relationships, she said. To relieve the stress, she said she began taking drugs, which led to the breakup of her 16-year marriage. The program has enabled her to face up to her past, to accept it and to make improvements, she said. “There are always solutions to problems, and that is the best part about the training,” she said. “In here, we learn about discipline and understanding. We have compassion for each other.” Schimmelfennig said she will be out of jail in 18 months, but wants to stay with the program to help set up a transition house for women. The longer Schimmelfennig and others like her stay in the program, the more likely they will stay away from crime, Wagatsuma said. Inmates Swearingin, 44, and Kono, 30, are likely to make a clean break from crime because they have been in the program for nearly three years, Wagatsuma said. Swearingin is serving a minimum of three and a half years of a 5-year sentence for habitually driving under the influence of alcohol. He has turned down parole opportunities twice to stay in the program. “It taught me who I am. I am an alcoholic,” Swearingin said. He came to grips with who he was during his first year in the program. “I realized I was powerless over alcohol,” he said. “Over a period of time, your true character is exposed.” Swearingin said he began taking steps to a life of sobriety after Wagatsuma threw down the gauntlet and gave him an ultimatum: Be committed to the Lifetime Stand program or enroll in another program at another correctional facility elsewhere in the state. Swearingin chose the former, and he says has no regrets. “I gained confidence and am learning how to live life without alcohol,” he said. “For the first time in my life, I like myself.” Swearingin began drinking when he was 13 and stopped only four years ago. During the first 40 years of his life, he was arrested six times for driving drunk. Fellow inmate Kono is serving a 2 1/2-year minimum sentence on a drug conviction. Like Swearingin, he skipped parole to remain in the program. “The longer you stay, the more prepared you are when you leave,” Kono said. “I am confident it (use of drugs again) won’t happen again.” Going to jail was a wakeup call. And Lifetime Stand, he said, offers him a way to straighten out his life. He said he has reestablished his priorities in life, rebuilt relationships with his family and become more goal-oriented. Kono aspires to be a hotel industry executive and a teacher. The program also has given her hope for a brighter future, says another inmate, Eleanor Ho’okano, 27, of Waimea. “Coming here has given me that time to break away, because coming in here I was in denial” of her crime, she said. Ho’okano was convicted of drug use and drug paraphernalia charges and is serving a mandatory 18 months of a five-year sentence. She is up for parole in two months. Whether she will opt for parole is up in the air, because while she craves freedom, she said she realizes the benefits of having been in Lifetime Stand Ho’okano said the program allowed her to dismantle her life and rebuild it. She said she was molested by a family member as a child, was a teenage mother of three children and took drugs to deal with stresses of life. Over the years, she built up walls and harbored animosity toward others. “This program taught me not to blame others and to look at myself,” she said. “I have come into my life as to who I really am, and I value my life.”
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and[ HREF=”mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net”>lchang@pulitzer.net] (Photo by Dennis Fujimoto)
