FORT WAYNE – Taking the idea from a successful Hawaii probation program, Allen Superior Court Judge Ken Scheibenberger announced plans Thursday to help curb probation violations.

Modeled after the HOPE program, Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement, the local program is called ACCEPT – Allen County Continuous Enforcement Probation Track – and will provide what the judge said is “swift and certain” punishment for probation violators.

Probationers who commit “technical violations” – missing probation appointments, failing drug screens or falling behind in restitution payments – are often sent back to prison, but only after they accumulate a handful of such violations, Scheibenberger said.

Scheibenberger is currently seeking re-election to the bench. He is being challenged by local attorney Lewis Griffin and Allen County Deputy Prosecutor Wendy Davis.

Under the new program, which will be first targeted at a dozen or so probationers, those who violate their probation will be picked up immediately, brought to court and sanctioned – either with a couple of days in jail, further rehabilitation efforts or extended probation.

The violations will not be allowed to accumulate as they have in the past, Scheibenberger said.

“So they realize there are consequences for misdeeds on probation,” he said. “Studies show that the closer the punishment is to the triggering event, the more effective it is.”

With the cooperation of Allen County Sheriff Ken Fries, who has promised to expedite service of those warrants, Scheibenberger expects to have the program up and running in the next few weeks.

Scheibenberger read about Hawaii’s program last fall but was reluctant to build “a bureaucracy” again as he said he had in the drug court program. At a judicial conference this spring, the idea, this time identified as “compliance court,” came up again, he said.

He met with Eric Zimmerman, Allen County’s chief probation officer, and the two have spent the past few months “fine-tuning” the program. They also have identified some high-risk offenders under Scheibenberger’s jurisdiction to bring into the program in early September.

“We’re starting out crawling with a dozen or so people,” Scheibenberger said. “They’re people I’ve placed on probation, and we’re going to go from there.

“If it works like it did in Hawaii, (where) it reduced the number of (positive drug tests) and no-shows, and the number of people they send off to prison, we hope to expand it if we have the same success they had.”

Recent research into Indiana’s prison population shows that a good chunk of the Department of Correction’s inmates are there because they violated probation and had suspended prison sentences revoked, the judge said.

Keeping those people out of the prisons could save money statewide, he said.

rgreen@jg.net