Honolulu Prosecutor Says Too Many Violent Criminals in Drug Probation Program

State Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald touted [HOPE] in his annual State of the Judiciary Address in a joint session of the legislature Wednesday.
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“Sex offenders, kidnapping, assault on police officers, terroristic threatening, domestic violence defendants – these should be incarcerated and not placed on HOPE Probation,” said [DA Keith] Kaneshiro.

According to Kaneshiro’s office, there were 2,021 probationers in the program in 2015. Of those, 686 of them—or more than a third—were violent or sex offenders that he said shouldn’t have been in the program in the first place.