The New York Times recently published a three-part investigative piece about privately operated New Jersey “halfway houses” a term that usually describes small, closely supervised residences where people making the transition from prison to the outside world get drug treatment, job placement and other services.
Part 1 covered the connections between New Jersey legislators and Community Education Centers (CEC), the organization that runs many of the state’s halfway houses. Part 2 focused on a single troubled CEC facility, Delaney Hall, where one or two low-wage, unarmed workers typically supervise each unit of 170 inmates, with robbery, sexual assault, and gang activity so bad that inmates regularly ask to be returned to prison where they feel safer. Part 3 covered a gruesome murder made possible by unchecked gang activity, inadequately trained staff and a culture of fear and compliance among nongang affiliated inmates.
