State aims to spread ‘HOPE’ to reduce re-arrests

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections is hoping to expand a pilot program launched in halfway houses in Pittsburgh and Scranton to facilities across the state after it showed promising signs it could reduce the chances that people will be arrested again for new crimes.

For about three years, the department studied nearly 200 people who went to its halfway houses in Pittsburgh and Scranton, where it used a new model for handing down discipline. The model, known as HOPE, encourages corrections workers to give “swift and certain” punishments — such as a few days in jail — each time someone under their supervision breaks a rule. That’s a marked change from many other programs, including some in the DOC’s other halfway houses, where corrections workers would sometimes wait weeks or months to address violations, potentially allowing them to pile

up.

While people who went through HOPE were likely booked into jail more frequently — often for “technical” violations such as a positive drug tests — they tended to spend nearly a week less time incarcerated overall. They were also nearly 13 percent less likely to be arrested again after their release when compared to people with similar criminal histories at facilities where the old models for discipline were used. That difference, the department said, is “statistically significant” and gives corrections officials hope that it could lead to a decrease in some crimes and lower incarceration costs in thelong term.

While the pilot program focused on nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom struggled with addiction to heroin or other substances, one DOC official sees potential to apply it to others. He hopes other agencies, such as the state Boardof Probation and Parole or county probation offices, will consider adopting it as well.

“I’ve been really encouraged by the results,” said Bret Bucklen, director of planning, research and statistics for the DOC. “... I think it could be applicable to other, even violent offenders as well.”

A start out West

HOPE, originally short for Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement, began in 2004, with people who were on probation. Steven Alm, a judge in Hawaii, was concerned about the number of probationers who appeared before him with multiple violations, making them good candidates to have their supervision revoked. When probationis revoked, people often spend the rest of their sentences in jail or prison. That could be weeks, months or even years depending on the natureof the crime.

Judge Alm worried that people weren’t taking probation seriously in part because their violations would pile up, often without consequences until they were close to having probation revoked. He worked with local officials in Hawaii to adopt a new model that offered clearly outlined punishments — such as short stays in jail — for violations likedirty drug tests.

In the years since, probation offices and corrections agencies across the country have adopted the HOPE model, often with little criticism. But one ongoing study hints that perhaps they shouldbe skeptical.

Last fall, researchers at Penn State University and nonprofit research group RTI International released preliminary results of an ongoing study of HOPE’s effectiveness in four locations across the country: Arkansas, Massachusetts, Oregon and Texas. The study, which focused on people on probation, found “no significant differences” in arrests or revocations for people who participated in HOPE asopposed to more traditional forms of probation. Their summary did note that some sites did not always follow all ofthe rules of HOPE.

Mr. Bucklen, at the Pennsylvania DOC, said he was familiar with the research. He said he felt the DOC’s study on people in halfway houses had been more successful in part because the department closely monitored HOPE as the pilot program unfolded and made adjustments based off the needs of people at individualfacilities.

‘Another tool’

Pennsylvania tested the HOPE model on people who had convictions for nonviolent crimes that were motivatedby drugs. That might for example, include someone who had stolen something to feeda drug habit.

“This could be another tool in our tool bag for the heroin epidemic,” Mr. Bucklensaid.

Forthreeyears,thedepartment monitored people who wereparticipatingintheState Intermediate Punishment program, known as SIP.

SIP is a two-year program to which people are sentenced by a judge and enrolled in with Department of Corrections approval. The department counts nearly 1,000 people in SIP throughout the state.

The first portion of SIP is spent in prison. Then, people move to a halfway house. They spend the first portion of their time in the halfway house in drug treatment and eventually earn the ability to comeand go from the facility.

The DOC used the HOPE model on everyone at two of its facilities — one in Pittsburgh and one in Scranton. It monitored everyone who enrolled there between September 2014 and September 2016, then followed their behavior for about a year, comparing their arrest rates to those of people with similar criminal backgrounds who went through DOC halfway houses thatstill used traditional disciplinemodels. It compared people based on their ages, other demographics and criminal histories.

People who lived in the halfway houses where HOPE was used watched an orientation video during which corrections secretary John Wetzel runs through the program’s nine rules. Among them: No relapsing, no drug paraphernalia, no drugs in thecenter, pass a breathalyzer testwhen you come and go.

People participating in HOPE signed a contract saying they understood the rules, and posters reminding them ofthe rules were placed across the center. The first violation came with a “time out” — about a night or two in jail. Subsequentviolations carried longer stints in jail, perhaps up to a week. Around the fourth violation, people could bekicked out of the program.

“It’s really almost like a parenting model where if the child misbehaves, we don’t have to do something harsh, but we do need to put them on timeout and we need to do it quickly and immediately and consistently,” Mr. Bucklen said. “We don’t ignore it for eight months and then punish them.”

To gauge HOPE’s success, theDOC, aided by researchers at Drexel University and the University of North Carolina, monitored DOC records and a statewide database tracking arrests to determine whether participants had been arrested again or booked into a jail or prison again. Compared with people who went throughthe old version of SIP, HOPE participants had higher rates of incarceration — 48 percent compared to 32 percent — but they spent less time in jails or prison overall — an average of 12 days comparedto 19 days.

People who participated in HOPE had “significantly reduced” number of arrests for drugs, “public order crimes” and property crimes, but “no significant differences in arrests for violent crimes were observed,” according to a research summary provided by thedepartment.

It’s too early to tell how HOPE participants will compare to others five or even 10 years down the road. But the DOC is so encouraged by the early results that it’s planning to use HOPE in all of its halfwayhouses within a year.