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Professor Angela Hawken Receives Grant for Probation Enforcement Research  

Angela Hawken, assistant professor at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy, was awarded a $240,968 research grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation. Hawken is the principal investigator of the evaluation of Hawaii's HOPE program, which uses swiftness and certainty in enforcing probation conditions. Mark Kleiman, professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, is a co-investigator on the project.  

The research team will evaluate whether applying swift and certain, but modest, jail sanctions for every probation violation is as an effective means to reform delinquent behavior. The grant will support an evaluation of HOPE, including a randomized controlled trial of high-risk probationers assigned to HOPE or regular probation, and a cost analysis to estimate the fiscal impacts of the program. Preliminary results have shown dramatic improvement in compliance and other probationer outcomes, with large reductions in recidivism and incarceration costs.

“This grant is an occasion to be celebrated not only as a milestone in the history of the Pepperdine School of Public Policy,” said James R. Wilburn, dean of the School of Public Policy, “but recognized even now as a significant event in our growth toward maturity as a graduate program of reputation and substance.”

Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy is built on a distinctive philosophy of nurturing leaders to use the tools of analysis and policy design to effect successful implementation and real change. It prepares graduates for careers as leaders and seeks also to strengthen the institutions which lie between the federal government and the individual, including the family, religious organizations, volunteer associations, local and regional government, and nonprofit organizations.