Princeton has just published a new book by Mark Kleiman, professor of public policy at UCLA and crime policy expert, called WHEN BRUTE FORCE FAILS: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment. The book has been generating much discussion as Kleiman proposes an innovative strategy for real and rapid change in the way this country deals with crime and punishment. Instead of instituting brute-force incarceration, substitute swiftness and certainty of punishment, and enforce probation and parole conditions so that community corrections become a genuine alternative to incarceration.

What’s exciting to learn is that Hawaii has created a program for dealing with crime and drug abuse called HOPE that uses many of these principles, and it’s generating much interest and discussion because of its documented success. In fact, the Honolulu Star Bulletin has just published an article about the successes of the HOPE program, and about how other states and even other countries are looking to institute similar program. Kleiman is interviewed in this article and his book mentioned. Read the article here.

And as a follow-up to the article, the Honolulu Star Bulletin published an editorial praising the program as a real and successful alternative to the current state of crime and punishment in the U.S. Here is an excerpt from the article:

“The program is in contrast with the failed “Three Strikes and You’re Out” system in California, where the prison population has soared from 76,000 in 1988 to nearly 167,000 today. California spends more on incarcerating adults than it pays to educate 226,000 students in its 10-campus University of California system.

HOPE has drawn worldwide attention and is being considered in Washington, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and New Jersey as a model for convicts sentenced to probation or serving parole following prison terms.

[Circuit Judge Steven S.] Alm [who conceived the program] was invited to discuss drug policy in Portugal in April and has agreed to a similar agenda at Stockholm with the Swedish Carnegie Institute in November.

Mark A.R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA and an expert on drug policy, said of HOPE, “As a recidivism prevention program, it’s unmatched, and as a drug treatment program, it’s unmatched.”"

Read the entire editorial here.