Zachary Hamilton
Zachary Hamilton

Judge Steven Alm was confounded after his first week on Hawaii’s circuit court. Amongst his other dockets, he watched Hawaii’s probation system in action, and he did not like what he saw. “[It] was an all of nothing system that wasn’t working,” says Alm.

Judge Alm’s solution became Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE). It is a program that embodies a deterrence approach to probation and parole. “[HOPE] is about proportionate and consistent punishment,” says Alm.

The threat of immediate sanctions in Hawaii seemed to work, and this piqued the interest of other jurisdictions around the country.

Of those other jurisdictions, Washington State took the biggest leap. In 2011, King County, home of Seattle, ran a 60-day pilot program to test the implementation a HOPE-like deterrence model. By June 1, 2012, Washington had taken the model and expanded it to everyone released on parole, as well as certain high-risk probationers.

“The project was born out of tighter budgets for the Washington Department of Corrections,” says Zachary Hamilton, WSU assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology. Hamilton is researching the model’s implementation and outcomes in Washington with assistant professor Jacque van Wormer.

Before this programmatic paradigm shift to “swift and certain,” Washington officers could only provide jail for violations in 30, 60, 90 and 120 day increments. The regimented guidelines were “hurting people that were employed, in substance treatment, and renters,” says Hamilton. The shorter jail sentences under the swift and certain model diminished those harms. “The key is that [the HOPE] model is doing sanctions proportionally. Instead of 30 days you’re doing one to three; we’re finding that three days is just as effective as 30, 60, or 90 days.”

Find out more

Huffington Post