[Prosecutor] Alm said in a recent interview it is interesting to try to sort through what the incarceration and crime statistics during the pandemic might mean, but he believes “crime dropped because the state kind of ground to a halt in many ways for a while.”
“Back then my sense of why crime dropped was because for a lot of that time businesses were closed, so opportunities for shoplifting were not there, and people were at home a lot … so that would lead people to have fewer burglaries,” he said.
Theft offenses in particular helped drive the overall reduction in Honolulu crime statistics in 2020, Alm said, and he noted Honolulu police statistics show theft, auto theft and burglary cases increased again in 2021 as the state economy recovered and the tourists returned.
Still, Alm said the state could reduce the number of people in jail, and “definitely could do some things to supervise people better and let more people out pretrial.” He cited the example of HOPE Probation, a program he pioneered for drug offenders and high-risk inmates that features “high-intensity supervision” and swift punishment for probation violators.
Felons violating probation threaten HI public safety
Since Alm left the bench in 2019, he said, the program is the same as regular probation, with no mandatory consequences for felons who commit multiple probation violations.
“Public safety is now being threatened in three ways,” Alm said.
“First, when HOPE probationers test positive, typically for methamphetamine, they are allowed to drive away from the courthouse while under the influence, presenting a risk to everyone on our roads.
“Second, research has shown that probationers in HOPE are arrested for new crimes 55% less often than those on regular probation. Now that HOPE is run just like regular probation, more people will be assaulted, have their houses burglarized and their cars stolen.
“Third, sex offenders and domestic violence offenders are now not being held accountable with immediate sanctions. When there are no consequences for misbehavior, you get more misbehavior.”
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The Judiciary “strongly disagrees” with Alm’s assessment of HOPE probation and says that some of the changes to the way it is administered are meant to return some discretion to judges and probation officers as opposed to one set of penalties for every offender in the program.
“Probation has two goals: protecting public safety and doing so while rehabilitating the offender. The Judiciary employs evidence-based practices to accomplish these two goals. As a result, we have modified the HOPE program to incorporate current evidence-based practices that have been developed since the 2000s,” Jan Kagehiro, the Judiciary’s communications and community relations director, told the Star-Advertiser.
Part of what’s changed about how HOPE is run now, according to the Judiciary, is that now if a probationer admits to using an illegal drug, that person’s probation officer decides on the appropriate sanction.
The sanction could be increased reporting, more drug testing, rehabilitation programs or jail.
Criminal Justice Reform in Hawaii
Hawaii has had a steady increase in incarceration rates for years, namely from 1980 to 2006. However, from 2006 to 2014, incarceration rates dropped by 19%. This drop is due to First Circuit Judge Steven Alm’s probation reform pilot program, Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE), which launched in 2004 to reduce recidivism and probation violations.
By establishing clear, swift, and immediate consequences for probation violations, HOPE has reduced recidivism by 55% and saved taxpayers between four and six thousand dollars per inmate per year.
Honolulu (HI) prosecutor navigates court-related challenges
KHON2: Before you were the prosecutor, and you were a judge, you had a well-known program, HOPE probation. It worked. Is it still working?
ALM: It worked extremely well, because regular probation is just ineffective at changing defendants’ behavior. HOPE probation was swift in certain consequences, it has tremendous outcomes. People were getting arrested for new crimes half as often. They were failing at probation and going to prison half as often. Unfortunately, the Judiciary is no longer following the HOPE model.
KHON2: What are you going to do about that?
ALM: We have been talking to the Supreme Court. We’ve been sending letters. The public defender and I are on the same page with this. How often does that happen? We wrote a letter to Chief Justice [Mark] Recktenwald saying that what you’re doing now is really threatening public safety. Let’s go back to the old HOPE model.
