Hope for probation: How Hawaii improved behavior with high-probability, low-severity sanctions

Inflation-adjusted spending on corrections in the United States has more than doubled over the past two decades. Concern over the cost of corrections has forced policy makers to consider alternatives to incarceration for drug offenders and make efforts to improve the performance of community supervision. The challenge is to find ways to keep drug offenders out of jail and prison without compromising public safety. Hawaii has achieved this goal, using an innovative low-cost approach that dramatically improves probationer compliance and reduces drug use and crime. The program is called Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement, known as HOPE.