"When somebody is waiting in the same (probation) office to be tested and they see somebody else being arrested for a positive urinalysis, it has a pretty dramatic effect," Alm said.

The HOPE project differs from regular probation where it can often take a dozen or more violations to trigger a revocation hearing, a process that can take weeks if not months.

The threat of immediate jail time led to a 64 percent reduction in the number of missed appointments and an 84 percent reduction in the number of positive drug tests, Alm said.

"They certainly have the statistics to show that it's been very successful so far," said Jack Tonaki, state public defender. "Anything that helps an offender maintain their probation and stay out of jail is helpful for the offender and the state as well."

Tonaki said the swift manner in which probation violations are handled has much to do with the program's success. He believes the program has more to do with judges trying to assist people on probation and keeping them on track rather than penalizing them for probation violations.

"Another benefit is that it shows right up front who the really chronic violators are going to be, the ones for whom there may be no alternative but to send to jail," Tonaki said.

HOPE's success was enough to persuade the 2006 Legislature to provide $1.2 million to expand the program to 130 convicts at present, with an eye toward expanding it to 1,000 or more.

Some $700,000 of the money approved by the Legislature will go toward slots in drug treatment programs while the remainder will be used to pay the salaries of three social services workers and four probation officers. The social services workers will be responsible for witnessing urine sample collections. The probation officers hired for the program will oversee about 100 probationers, about half the normal workload, but will intensely supervise the probationers assigned to them.

On July 1, Circuit Court Judges Derrick Chan, Richard Perkins and Richard Pollack began using the program. In August, fellow Circuit Judges Virginia Crandall, Dexter Del Rosario, Karl Sakamoto, Michael Town and Michael Wilson will also have the HOPE option at their disposal.

There about 7,200 people on probation in Hawai'i. Yanking probation for any of them and sending them to prison to serve out their terms comes at a heavy price for taxpayers — $38,000 per person to be exact, Alm said.

"Our probation officers are authorized to make arrests," Alm says. "So if you go in to take a urine test for drug tests, and it comes back positive, you can be arrested on the spot."

Probationers selected for the program have demonstrated a tendency to miss appointments and fail drug tests, Alm said.

Those picked for the program are brought into Alm's courtroom for what he calls a "warning hearing."

"One of the first things I tell them is that I really want to see them succeed, their probation officers want them to succeed, everybody here wants them to succeed," Alm said.

Then he makes it clear that the person solely responsible for their success or failure is himself or herself.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com.