It was his sixth criminal conviction since 2003, and Joe Kop faced up to five years in prison for grabbing his wife by the neck and threatening to stab her with a kitchen knife.

But at the sentencing, Circuit Judge Steven Alm decided to give the Wai'anae resident a break.

Instead of putting Kop behind bars in December 2006, Alm allowed the convicted felon to enter a special probation program for domestic violence offenders, sex abusers and drug offenders.

The innovative program, which has received national attention for its promising results thus far, requires strict monitoring of each probationer. At the first sign of a probation violation, the convict is put behind bars. Under the regular probation program, criminals historically have suffered few consequences for violations.

So far, Kop has proved that Alm made the right call in his case.

He has stayed out of trouble, kicked his ice addiction and has a full-time job as a commercial truck driver. His wife says he became a different man once off drugs.

"He's a new person," said Shawna Kop. "Without the drugs and everything, it's wonderful."

Kop credits the probation program, Hawai'i's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement, or HOPE, with helping turn his life around.

"I don't ever want to see drugs again," the 31-year-old father of four children said in a recent interview outside his Wai'anae home. "I've got my head on straight now."

HOPE, the brainchild of Alm, has been around since 2004. Emphasizing swift and certain repercussions, it is designed to reduce probation violations among domestic violence offenders and others who have a high risk of recidivism.

"If you're going to change behaviors, swift and certain consequences are going to do it," said Alm, a former U.S. attorney.

In the HOPE program, criminals are warned that if they miss a probation appointment or test dirty on random drug tests, they'll be sent to jail almost immediately, for at least a few days for the first violation, longer for subsequent ones. Because of Kop's criminal record, he was told that if he violated probation just once, he would be back in prison, serving his five-year term.

The criminals also have to call a hot line every weekday to learn if they report later that day for random drug testing. Under the regular probation system, they know as much as a month ahead of time when they'll be tested.

For domestic violence offenders in the HOPE program, the probation violations fell dramatically, mirroring what happened with the broader population of criminals in the program. And the longer they were in the program, the better the results.

Missed appointments among the 120 domestic abusers dropped 82 percent, while positive urine tests plunged more than 90 percent, according to data through late May.

"From the beginning, we've had these great results," Alm said. "It's just unbelievable numbers."

Joe Bloom, program director for Catholic Charities Hawai'i's therapeutic services, applauds the program for being fair and having quick consequences. He has sex offender clients in the program.

"It's got a lot of teeth," Bloom said. "That's what you need."

Whether the program will change long-term behaviors, once the criminals are off probation, remains to be seen.

"We sure hope so," Alm said.

One state study that looked at nearly 200 domestic violence offenders from 2004 through 2007 found that nearly 40 percent had been re-arrested for abuse of a family or household member by April 2007. That's in the same range as national studies on recidivism.

In Kop's case, he already had a criminal record, including two domestic abuse convictions, when he was charged in July 2006 with first-degree terrorist threatening and two other charges. After Kop was served with a temporary restraining order sought by his wife, he went to their Wai'anae home and, during an argument, put a kitchen knife to her cheek and threatened to cut her throat and stab her heart, court records show.

At his sentencing hearing, Kop told Alm that his actions were inexcusable.

During an October interview, Kop said his behavior in 2006 was influenced by his ice addiction. Everyone he knew from prison, he added, also had an ice problem.

"If you crack down on drugs, you would reduce a lot of crimes, not just domestic violence," Kop said.

He said he is motivated to stay straight because of his family and because of the time he spent in prison. "It's wild in there. It ain't no place to be."

Some people, including Catholic Charities' Bloom, believe Hawai'i's domestic violence problem will remain unresolved until men decide otherwise.

"Women can learn all the karate they want and carry all the mace they want, but until men decide violence against women is going to end, it's not going to end," he said. "We're just not being held accountable."