I 
111TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 4055 
To authorize a national HOPE Program to reduce drug use, crime, and 
the costs of incarceration. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 6, 2009 
Mr. SCHIFF (for himself and Mr. POE of Texas) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 
A BILL 
To authorize a national HOPE Program to reduce drug 
use, crime, and the costs of incarceration. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Honest Opportunity 
Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) Initiative Act of 
2009’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) Crime continues to inflict a severe cost on 
victims and communities across the country. 
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(2) Criminal apprehension and punishment 
similarly impose substantial costs on taxpayers, with 
States spending over $50,000,000,000 on corrections 
in fiscal year 2008, accounting for 1 in every 15 
State general fund dollars. 
(3) A substantial amount of crime, and a sub-
stantial share of prison occupancy, is directly tied to 
illicit drug consumption. A relatively small group of 
chronic drug users consumes the vast majority of co-
caine, heroin, and methamphetamine in the United 
States, and approximately three-quarters of this 
group pass through the criminal justice system at 
some point. Consequently, reducing drug consump-
tion in the United States requires effectively ad-
dressing the drug habits of supervised offenders. 
(4) One in 100 adults is behind bars, and 1 in 
31 is under some form of criminal justice super-
vision, including probation and parole. Of the 
7,300,000 individuals in the United States who are 
under criminal justice supervision, the majority 
(4,300,000) are serving a term of probation in their 
communities, in lieu of serving time behind bars. 
(5) The failure of individuals serving terms of 
probation to successfully complete such terms is a 
major contributor to prison admissions. In 2007, 
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more than 250,000 such individuals were admitted 
to prison. Consequently, controlling drug use by in-
dividuals who are serving a period of probation re-
duces both national drug consumption and crime 
rates, and reduces taxpayer burdens. 
(6) Innovations in offender supervision prove 
that swift, certain, and graduated sanctions for non-
compliance can reduce drug use, new crimes, and 
revocation to incarceration. 
(7) Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with En-
forcement (HOPE) initiative, an offender super-
vision program to reduce probation violations by 
drug and other high-risk offenders using a struc-
tured sanctions model, has been shown to be highly 
successful at reducing drug use, crime, and recidi-
vism. 
(8) According to an article in the Journal of the 
American Medical Association in August of 2009, if 
the HOPE initiative was replicated effectively in 
multiple jurisdictions, the program might have 
broader benefits beyond assisting probationer par-
ticipants at risk for heavy drug use, such as helping 
to shrink the market for illegal drugs and the profits 
of drug trafficking organizations. 
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SEC. 3. HOPE INITIATIVE GRANTS. 
(a) PROGRAM ESTABLISHED.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Attorney General may 
establish a competitive demonstration grant program 
to award grants to State, tribal, and local courts to 
establish probation programs that reduce drug use, 
crime, and recidivism by requiring swift, predictable, 
and graduated sanctions for noncompliance with the 
conditions of probation, as determined by the Attor-
ney General. 
(2) NUMBER AND SELECTION OF GRANTS.— 
(A) NUMBER.—The Attorney General shall 
have the discretion to award not more than 20 
grants under this section. 
(B) SELECTION.—The Attorney General 
shall ensure that such grants are awarded in a 
manner that promotes the strongest proposals, 
evaluation designs, and geographic diversity of 
the demonstration programs under this section. 
(b) APPLICATION.—To be eligible for a grant under 
this section, a State, tribal, or local court shall, in addition 
to any other requirements required by the Attorney Gen-
eral, submit to the Attorney General an application that— 
(1) describes the program to be assisted under 
this section and the need for such program; 
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(2) describes a long-term strategy and detailed 
implementation plan for such program, including 
how the entity plans to pay for the program after 
the Federal funding is discontinued; 
(3) certifies that all government entities af-
fected by the program have been appropriately con-
sulted in the development of the program and that 
there will be appropriate coordination with all such 
entities in the implementation of the program; 
(4) identifies the key partners that will be in-
cluded in the program, including the Chief Judge of 
the court of the relevant jurisdiction and other par-
ticipating judges in such jurisdiction, State court ad-
ministrator, probation and parole administrators, 
jail and prison administrators, prosecutors, public 
defenders and defense attorneys, and sheriff or po-
lice administrators; and 
(5) includes an assurance that the applicant 
will— 
(A) collect key process measures, including 
the number of individuals enrolled in the pro-
gram, the frequency of drug testing of such in-
dividuals, the certainty of sanctions for a viola-
tion of the terms of probation, the average pe-
riod of time from detection of a violation to 
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issuance of a sanction for such violation, and 
sanction severity; 
(B) conduct an unbiased comparison of the 
outcomes between program participants and 
similarly situated probationers not in the pro-
gram, including the positive and negative drug 
test rates, probation and substance abuse treat-
ment appearance rates, probation term modi-
fications, revocations, arrests, time spent in jail 
or prison, and total correctional costs incurred; 
and 
(C) partner with an independent program 
advisor and evaluator, who will assist the appli-
cant with designing the demonstration program 
to be carried out with the grant, identifying the 
appropriate comparison group for the compari-
son required under subparagraph (A), and 
measuring relevant outcomes for such compari-
son. 
(c) GRANT USES.—A grant awarded under this sec-
tion shall be used by the grantee to establish probation 
programs that— 
(1) identify for enrollment in the program indi-
viduals who are serving a term of probation and who 
are at high risk of failing to observe the conditions 
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of supervision and of being returned to incarceration 
as a result of such failure; 
(2) notify probationers of the rules of the pro-
bation demonstration program, and consequences for 
violating such rules; 
(3) monitor probationers for illicit drug use 
with regular and rapid-result drug screening; 
(4) monitor probationers for violations of other 
rules and probation terms, including failure to pay 
court-ordered financial obligations such as child sup-
port or victim restitution; 
(5) respond to violations of such rules with im-
mediate arrest of the violating probationer, and swift 
and certain modification of the conditions of proba-
tion, including imposition of short jail stays (which 
may gradually become longer with each additional 
violation and modification); 
(6) immediately respond to probationers who 
have absconded from supervision with service of 
bench warrants and immediate sanctions; 
(7) provide rewards to probationers who comply 
with such rules; 
(8) ensure funding for, and referral to, sub-
stance abuse treatment for probationers who repeat-
edly fail to refrain from illicit drugs use; 
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(9) establish procedures to terminate program 
participation by, and initiate revocation to a term of 
incarceration for, probationers who habitually fail to 
abide by program rules and pose a threat to public 
safety; and 
(10) include regular coordination meetings for 
the key partners of the demonstration program, in-
cluding the partners identified in the grant applica-
tion in accordance with subsection (b)(4). 
(d) DETERMINATION OF PROGRAM SAVINGS.— 
(1) GRANTEE SAVINGS AND REINVESTMENT.— 
Each court receiving a grant under this section 
shall— 
(A) not later than 12 months after an ini-
tial grant award under this section, and annu-
ally thereafter through the end of the grant pe-
riod, calculate the amount of cost savings, if 
any, resulting from the reduced incarceration 
achieved through such grant program; and 
(B) report to the Attorney General— 
(i) the amount calculated under sub-
paragraph (A); and 
(ii) the portion of such amount, if 
any, that will be reinvested for expansion 
of such grant program. 
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(2) 
EVALUATION, 
GUIDANCE, 
AND
REC-
OMMENDATIONS.—The Attorney General shall— 
(A) annually evaluate— 
(i) the methods used by courts to cal-
culate the cost savings reported under 
paragraph (1); and 
(ii) the use of such savings by the 
courts to reinvest for expansion of the 
grant program; and 
(B) provide guidance, assistance, and rec-
ommendations to such courts relating to the po-
tential reinvestment of such savings for expan-
sion of such grant program. 
(e) EVALUATION COORDINATOR.—The Attorney Gen-
eral shall select an entity to serve as the HOPE initiative 
evaluation coordinator to— 
(1) analyze and provide feedback on the meas-
ures and outcomes the individual HOPE initiative 
demonstration programs are required to collect and 
conduct, respectively, in accordance with subsection 
(b)(5); 
(2) ensure consistent tracking of the progress 
of the demonstration programs carried out under 
this section, including such measures and outcomes; 
and 
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(3) ensure that the aggregate data from all 
such demonstration programs is available to each of 
the programs and the Attorney General. 
(f) ANNUAL REPORT.—The Attorney General shall 
annually report to Congress on the results of the HOPE 
initiative carried out under this section. 
(g) AUTHORIZATION
OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There 
are authorized to be appropriated for grants awarded 
under this section $25,000,000 for each of fiscal years 
2010 through 2014, of which not more than $500,000 
shall be available to the Attorney General in each fiscal 
year for coordination activities necessary to carry out this 
section. 
Æ 
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