SCARED STRAIGHT...BY PROBATION

Honolulu - Jobert Sumibcay, father of a toddler, was in jail only for
the weekend, but it was bitter. "Father's Day, missing Father's Day,"
he lamented. The 21-year-old admitted car thief and methamphetamine
addict, usually free on probation, added: "It's actually real good
that I come to prison" because it "wakes you up: Why are you doing
this? You could be out there instead of being in here."

That is the message an innovative Hawaiian probation program aims to
send. Started about four years ago by a former U.S. attorney who is
now a judge, the program has the potential to transform the nation's
broken probation system, some crime experts believe.

Known as HOPE, for Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement,
the strategy has sharply reduced probation violations among
participating criminals.

Preliminary evidence from law enforcement suggests it can also reduce
repeat crimes. The key: "flash incarceration" that sends offenders to
jail for short but immediate sentences for violating virtually any
probation condition.

Those who follow the rules are rewarded with looser supervision. The
U.S. has the world's highest rate of incarceration, according to a
study of 214 countries by King's College London. But even larger
numbers are on probation: 4.2 million at the end of 2006, according
to the Department of Justice, 1.8 million more than were locked up in
all correctional facilities across the country.

As many as half of probationers go on to break the law again,
exemplifying how poor the system is at rehabilitation. One reason:
the criminal justice system has increasingly tilted toward "tough on
crime" severity, such as "three strikes and you're out," giving short
shrift to what has been known about changing human behavior since at
least the Enlightenment. That's when philosopher Cesare Beccaria,
whose ideas influenced Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, wrote in a
seminal 1764 treatise, "Crimes are more effectually prevented by the
certainty than the severity of punishment." Beccaria also postulated
that the swifter the punishment, the likelier offenders would be to
associate them with their crimes.

There are caveats.

Some prosecutors fear that a special, strictly monitored probation
may tempt judges to place people in it who should actually be behind
bars. (Probation is community supervision in lieu of prison; parole
is for prisoners released early. Criminals deemed violent are usually
ineligible for any probation, including HOPE.)

Two men selected for HOPE allegedly committed murder before they were
formally enrolled in the program. Such cases, said Honolulu
prosecuting attorney Peter Carlisle, could spark a political backlash.

"The million-dollar question," Mr. Carlisle added, is whether HOPE
reduces the rate of new crimes committed by probationers.
"Intuitively I would believe that it does," he said, "but you've got
to show me." Final data on that question are expected by year end.

Others wonder whether the program, which requires efficient
coordination among multiple agencies, can be replicated in larger
bureaucracies. Prof. David Kennedy of New York's John Jay College of
Criminal Justice counters, "This is not rocket science, this is
training-a-puppy stuff." Nationally, more than half of men arrested
test positive for drugs when they are apprehended, according to
Justice Department research.

But one of HOPE's standout successes, reducing drug use, embroils it
in a debate: whether jail, however brief, is appropriate for addicts
who relapse into drug use. Some drug-policy reformers argue that
incarceration perpetuates the paradigm of addiction as a crime rather
than a disease.

HOPE proponents counter that flash incarceration spares offenders
longer prison terms by helping them get off drugs, obey probation and
refrain from committing new crimes. Prof. Kennedy said the research
conducted so far on HOPE shows that even tough, drug-using felons
"can be very effectively reached by a very common-sense structure of
clear expectations, clear, predictable consequences, and real help
and support."

While in jail, Kenneth Costa, a 44-year-old convicted drug felon who
said he started using methamphetamine more than 25 years ago, heard
about HOPE from fellow inmates, some of whom described it as a "last
chance" and told him it "keeps you on track. My fiancee was
pregnant.I was sick and tired of being sick and tired." He said the
program provides the "structure" to help his treatment succeed.

He said he has been drug-free for 14 months. HOPE is the brainchild
of Judge Steven Alm, an energetic 55-year-old former U.S. attorney
for Hawaii who drives a black Corvette. He was assigned to criminal
court in 2004 and immediately faced a slew of motions to revoke
probation. In every case, he recalls, the defendant had "pages of
violations stretching back months or even years" yet had suffered
virtually no consequences for any of them.

That is the reality across the U.S., Prof. Kennedy said. Probation,
administered by a patchwork of state and local systems and often
starved for resources, "basically teaches people to ignore" probation
officers' warnings, he said, until violations accumulate to a tipping point.

Then, offenders face dire -- and expensive -- consequences: in
Hawaii, as much as 20 years in prison.

To Judge Alm, this system seemed as absurd as parents failing to
respond to a child's persistent misbehavior and then suddenly kicking
him or her out of the house.

His idea: Instead of one severe sanction after many violations, mete
out relatively minor but "swift and certain" sanctions for every
violation. The judge holds a "warning hearing" to explain the HOPE rules.

Under regular probation, for example, offenders are usually
drug-tested only when they meet with their probation officer, giving
them time to wash out the drugs. In HOPE, probationers with a drug
problem must call in every weekday morning to see if they are
scheduled for a random drug test that day. Virtually every violation
results in immediate arrest, a hearing within 72 hours and almost
certain jail time, varying from a few days for a first violation to a
few months for subsequent ones. Participants who accumulate several
violations risk having probation revoked and being sent to prison for years.

"I thought it would be counterproductive," recalled probation officer
Sheri Shimbakuku. "How will I help them if they're in jail?" But she
says HOPE probationers seemed much more receptive to help: "Boy, it
was just different seeing their reaction to being in jail."

Flash incarceration has been used around the U.S. by specialized
courts established to adjudicate drug cases, with demonstrated success.

But the Hawaii program is one of the first to test the approach among
a broader group of probationers. In a randomized, controlled trial of
more than 500 probationers, researchers from Pepperdine University
and the University of California at Los Angeles found HOPE
probationers were less than half as likely as controls to miss
probation-officer appointments or test dirty for drugs, even though
the controls knew in advance when they would be tested and HOPE
participants didn't. These preliminary findings are being announced
Thursday, and full results are expected by year end. Hawaii's state
legislature allocated $1.2 million last year for the program, almost
two-thirds of which went toward drug treatment slots.

But not everyone in HOPE gets treatment. Not all users are addicts;
some users can stop without treatment. Those who are truly addicted
triage themselves into treatment by repeatedly testing dirty.

The program now has more than 1,200 participants, out of Oahu's total
population, excluding domestic violence offenders, of about 7,650
felony probationers.

Its emphasis on sanctions led some to dub it "yank and spank." But in
court, Judge Alm seems less the law-and-order hard-liner than the
basketball coach he once was, giving his probationers pep talks.

Because Mr. Sumibcay, the father of the toddler, has a job as an
airport porter, Judge Alm said he could serve his six-day sentence
over two weekends so he wouldn't miss work. Mr. Sumibcay said he was
grateful for the choice.