A program originating in Hawaiçi has been yielding promising results, keeping drug offenders closer to the straight-and-narrow terms of their probation. That is a result worthy of support, both here in the Islands and nationally.

And Project HOPE, an initiative of the justice system to stop criminal behavior from accelerating, has drawn the attention of national experts who think it’s a model to be replicated in other states.
“When Brute Force Fails,” a new book by UCLA professor Mark Kleiman, includes a major section and other references to Project HOPE, created by state Circuit Court Judge Steven Alm.
HOPE stands for Hawai'i’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement. Kleiman has been studying the project along with another California professor, Angela Hawken, and their full study is due to be released later this year.
But the book extols what already seems evident with the project, which is designed to reduce probation violations in drug cases by imposing consequences that are usually brief but meted out quickly. Rather than stiff sentences after repeated violations, Alm has kept more offenders from violating probation by making violations easy to detect through frequent drug testing and short jail terms. Punishment that is certain seems to work better than penalties that are randomly enforced but more severe.
The program, Kleiman writes, has manageable costs in the short run and can produce better results, both in human and budgetary terms.
At a time when heavy investments in incarceration have proven difficult to sustain, that is a benefit that bears watching carefully.