Seeking to reduce the use of incarceration is an essential part of WPA's mission. We fulfill this mission through our Hopper Home Alternative to Incarceration (ATI) program and our advocacy efforts to increase investment in community-based responses to crime.

WPA staff regularly interviews women incarcerated at Rikers Island, working with them to locate an ATI program that best serves their personal and criminal justice-compliance needs. Our staff works with the woman and the criminal justice authorities to secure her admission to an appropriate program at WPA or a colleague agency.

Through both advocacy and program services, WPA promotes the use of community-based, non-incarcerating responses to crime that produce individual accountability while also improving a woman’s prospects for living a law-abiding and productive life in the community. (Read more about WPA’s advocacy related to Alternatives to Incarceration.)

Hopper Home Alternative to Incarceration Program
Hopper Home Alternative to Incarceration is a program for women under court supervision who can fulfill their criminal justice obligations in the community rather than in prison. Hopper Home ATI includes both transitional residence and community supervision phases. Both phases address the overlapping issues and relationships among the criminal justice, family court, and human service systems.

Hopper Home provides a safe, clean, drug-free residence for up to 20 women who would otherwise face an average prison sentence of two to six years. Clients at Hopper Home must obey house rules, participate in goal-setting and planning steps and comply with all court mandates or face sanctions up to and including imprisonment.

Hopper Home staff works with residents to coordinate their participation in and completion of all court-mandated programs, including drug treatment and anger management programs. Staff also work with clients to assess and address their mental health, medical care, family counseling and reunification, education, and employment needs. Residents participate in a range of self-reflection and improvement activities in addition to concrete skill-development classes intended to prepare them for the transition from Hopper Home to community-based independent living. The residential phase is complete when, in addition to meeting the court’s requirements for her individual case, a woman finds housing and secures a means of support that are acceptable to the court.

The community supervision component of Hopper Home ATI provides case management and support for women who have either completed the residential phase of Hopper Home and relocated to community housing or have been referred for assistance in meeting the terms of a non-residential community sentence. Women in the community supervision phase participate in structured day, evening, and weekend activities at Hopper Home. Case managers monitor progress through close supervision and frequent reassessment and update of goals, and encourage client participation in mental health counseling, educational programming, family-oriented activities, regular health care, and exploration of social and assistance programs at other community agencies.