Pubdate: Tue, 30 Mar 2010
Source: Honolulu Star-Bulletin (HI)
Copyright: 2010 Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Contact: http://archives.starbulletin.com/forms/letterform.html
Website: http://www.starbulletin.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/196

FUNDING HOPE MAKES SENSE FOR BUDGET, CRIME

The success of a Hawaii probation system consisting of random drug 
tests and quick but short jail stays has attracted national attention 
and should be expanded. The Legislature should assure funding for the 
program, realizing that will reduce incarceration costs overall by 
reducing the state's prison population.

The system was initiated six years ago by Circuit Judge Steven Alm, a 
former city deputy prosecutor and Hawaii's U.S. attorney in the 
Clinton administration. The program is called HOPE, for Hawaii's 
Opportunity Probation with Enforcement, and includes 1,500 of Oahu's 
8,000 or so felony probationers.

Skeptics at first tended to regard the program as a slap on the 
wrists of probation violators, but Alm found that those quick slaps 
work better than threatening horrible punishments far in advance. Alm 
said he patterned it after the parenting of his son: "If he 
misbehaved, I talked to him and warned him, and if he disregarded the 
warning, I gave him some kind of consequence right away."

Regular convicts on probation are notified of upcoming drug tests. 
Nearly half of them were arrested in 2007, according to a yearlong 
study by Angela Hawken, a professor of economics and political 
analysis at Pepperdine University. Only 21 percent of the HOPE 
probationers were arrested on new charges.

Her study found that HOPE probationers were 72 percent less likely to 
use drugs and 55 percent less likely to be arrested than regular 
probationers. They also were less likely to have their probations 
revoked, resulting in lower costs for incarceration.

Hawken estimates yearly savings of $4,000 to $8,000 in incarceration 
per offender. HOPE costs about $2,500 per probationer, including 
costs of treatment, compared with $1,000 for regular probation supervision.

Rep. Marcus Oshiro, chairman of the House Finance Committee, said 
"the data on HOPE show that it's probably one of the best and most 
cost-effective ways of treating our nonviolent drug offenders." His 
committee has restored funding for specialty courts and HOPE, and the 
measure awaits Senate action.

Honolulu Prosecutor Peter Carlisle has reservations about HOPE, 
pointing out that Aaron Susa, a defendant in the death of a 
25-year-old tourist woman on Waikiki in October, was on HOPE 
probation. However, all of Susa's prior arrests were for nonviolent 
offenses and he likely would have been on regular probation if not in 
HOPE probation at the time of the woman's death. Also, Carlisle 
pointed to Corbit K. Ahn, accused in the strangling death of an 
18-year-old girl in Kalihi last August. Although he had previously 
been a HOPE parolee, Ahn had moved to the Big Island, which has only 
regular probation.

Legislators would be derelict in failing to maintain the HOPE program 
and expand it in future years. Because of the net savings, they are 
unable to deny the funding on the basis of cost.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart