Halfway House - Recent Issues

Recent Issues

As the economy lulls and there are less opportunities for traditional prison building. Halfway Houses are currently under debate in some parts of Chicago. (see: http://www.chicagonow.com/concerned-citizens-of-chatham/2011/12/are-halfway-houses-welcome-in-chatham/).

Kilburn and Costanza (2011) point out that the 2007 Petit Family Murders, in Cheshire, Ct., were specifically designed by 2 former convicts who met in a Connecticut halfway house.

In New Jersey, the governor, came under fire by a series of investigative articles in the New York Times for privatizing halfway houses. To downsize the fiscal needs of New Jersey, the state delegated the responsibility of halfway houses to Community Education Centers, a company with a myriad ties to Chris Christie, including Christie's former lobbying for the company, and utilizing its senior vice president as a political adviser. Christie is additionally featured on a promotional video on the company's web site. Despite privatization, Community Education Centers is subsidized with $71 million by the state of New Jersey. Lack of regulation and state oversight has led to violent crimes and escapees, such as Rafael Miranda. Only three prisoners escaped from 2010 to the first 11 months of 2011, whereas 163 escaped during the last quarter of 2011 from the halfway houses, with 452 for the entire year. No new charges are brought for escaping, only extraneous crimes such as Miranda's homicide. Despite the halfway houses' flaws, recidivism was reduced from 30000 to 25000, and the state spends almost half as much money per resident in a halfway house to inmate in a prison. However, crime statistics in general have fallen throughout the United States (Crime in the United States), and Community Education financed its own research.