Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Roundtable: Swift, Certain, Fair: Findings from Hawaii Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE), 24/7, and Beyond

(Crime and Drugs)

Probation and parole is beset with high rates of failure to comply and recidivism, yielding correspondingly high rates of revocations and returns to incarceration. Swift, certain, and fair (SCF) is an approach to probation and parole (and, more recently, pretrial and in-custody supervision) that employs close monitoring, swift and certain responses to violations of conditions of supervision, and modest sanctions to motivate compliance. Together, these elements are intended to shape behavior and to foster a sense of fairness in supervision and of procedural justice. A growing body of evidence addresses the efficacy of SCF in reducing violations, drug use, recidivism, and incarceration in community supervision. Started in 2004 in Hawaii, HOPE probation was the first large-scale SCF program to demonstrate success in a randomized controlled trial; HOPE has now been replicated or adapted in more than twenty states. 24/7 Sobriety is an SCF program for repeat alcohol-involved offenders, started in 2005 in South Dakota and now established or piloted in at least nine states. Both HOPE and 24/7 are listed as “Promising” in the US Department of Justice’s evidence-based-practices portal, crimesolutions.gov. This roundtable will present recent findings from studies of a variety of SCF programs. A long-term followup of the original HOPE RCT in Hawaii finds that former HOPE subjects have lower rates of drug use, arrest, and incarceration than do former probationers under conventional supervision but no differences in followup charges for property crimes. Data from Washington State’s Swift and Certain supervision for probation and parole show reductions in technical violations and incarceration since its implementation statewide with more than 15,000 offenders in 2012, but no difference in recidivism. An RCT with 1600 probationers in replications of HOPE in four mainland jurisdictions, the HOPE Demonstration Field Experiment, has recently completed; findings from interview and administrative recidivism data will be presented. Data from four states with 24/7 Sobriety programs—rearrest records and millions of alcohol tests—shed light on replication and scaling up of pilot programs, and whether to expect a scale-up penalty (as is typically assumed) or bonus.