Halfway Houses/Hawthorn Heights

The cons to halfway houses are mostly the re-occurring criminals that cannot change their ways and it hurts taxpayers to support these houses. In essence, people of the facilities are not always going to be under “great” supervision. Envision that a criminal decides they no longer want to be there and they escape with very little effort, a task not as easy to do in a judicial care system.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons contracts with Residential Re-entry Centers (RRCFs), also known as halfway houses, to provide assistance to inmates who are nearing release. A traditional supervised RRCF provides a structured environment, counseling, job placement, and other services; ergo, each halfway house is unique in regards to the programs offered and the type of clients they serve. A prisoner re-entry program, halfway houses help inmates to gradually rebuild their ties to the community and facilitate supervising offenders' activities during this readjustment phase. This dissertation is dedicated to examining Dismas House of Kansas City Missouri.

Halfway houses and electronic monitoring are two methods used by probation or parole officers to allow offenders to enter back in to the community in different ways. Each option for officers offers a different way of supervision which allows for offenders to enter back into the community while still being monitored. In this paper I am going to explain how both halfway houses and electronic monitoring work and how they each are effective. Also I am going to discuss which one if any is better than the other. Some topics will include cost effectiveness and reducing recidivism. To conclude I have an officers input on which one he believes to be better and a summary of

Upon release contact will be made with the former inmates periodically over a five-year time period. Ideally contact will be made once every year, five times in total. When one on one interviews are possible with former inmates they will be asked if they believe that the re-entry services have helped them substantially in becoming a productive member in society. If they did not

If we dissect a hypothetical situation in which a halfway house is being occupied with recovering drug addicts, how can we be certain that the home is going to be supervised properly? However, residents of the halfway house are not always going to be under direct supervision. For example, if a resident decides that they no longer want to be there. They have the opportunity to escape with very little effort. This confinement is not as easy to accomplish with a judicial institution. These offenders can become a hazard and dangerous to others due to their extreme behavior as they seek out for drugs, or trying to run away from capture. Between January 2008 and March 2009, there were 201 escaped offenders from a halfway house resident according to the New Jersey Today. This is an average of one escape every two days over a fifteen-month time frame. These escapes were associated with seven out of the twenty-five privately run halfway houses in Trenton, New Jersey. An obstacle, such as this, proves that the instability of halfway houses is lacking in view of management. Furthermore, halfway house programs sometimes reflect a corrupt system that awards contracts on the basis of political favoritism rather than the ability to reduce recidivism. Halfway house agreements are sometimes seen as a way for government officials to reward political backers and campaign contributors. Unfortunately, not all halfway

305). Furthermore, halfway houses, or residential re-entry centers, facilitate reintegration by offering a safe, structured, and supervised environment that provide employment counseling, job placement, financial management assistance, and other programs and services (Watkins, 2017). Additionally, halfway house placement can be used a sentencing alternative for low-risk offenders or the mentally ill; however, we need to consider the effectiveness of halfway houses as a transition or alternate sentencing option (Watkins, 2017). A study conducted by the Pennsylvania Corrections Department revealed that 67 percent of inmates sent to halfway houses were rearrested within three years, which was 7 percent higher than offenders who were released back to the streets with no transitional support (Dolnick, 2014). Therefore, we need to evaluate whether it is more beneficial and effective to increase programs, services, and treatment during incarceration than to continue to invest money in residential re-entry

The Federal Bureau of Prisons contracts with Residential Re-entry Centers (RRCFs), also known as halfway houses, to provide assistance to inmates who are nearing release. Traditional RRCF’s provide a structured, supervised environment offering employment assistance and preparation, clinical counseling, mentoring and other services; ergo, each halfway house is unique in regards to the programs offered and the type of clients they serve. As a prisoner re-entry program, halfway houses help inmates to progressively repair their relationship to the community and expedite supervising the offenders' activities during this rehabilitation stage. This dissertation is dedicated to examining Dismas House of Kansas City Missouri (DHKC).

Inmates are released with few if any resources and usually end up returning to the institution after failing to reestablish productive lives in the community. This alarming reality is both a fiscal and social problem: state budget deficits bring enormous prison expenditures to light as social injustices in the system persist. Reforming the system to end the cycle of incarceration will have positive effects on the bottom line while reducing crime and thereby increasing public safety. Clearly, the deterrence effects of harsh prison sentences have not been effective. It may be time to once again embrace and expand the rehabilitative capacity of the criminal justice system.

The goal of the halfway house is to provide a temporary safe environment for soon to be released prisoners. Some of the prisoners stay a short period of time approximately 6 months. ( Bohm & Haley, 2014) The halfway house is to help the prisoner transition back to society. The principal goal of the halfway house is to make sure that the prisoners are getting the things that they’re needing to make sure they won’t end up back behind bars. The main goal is to help the prisoners find a steady job where they can be held accountable for their own actions. Education for prisoners is very important so making sure that the prisoner is going to educational classes such as GED classes or trade school. Most important to the prisoners in the halfway

Both jail and prison offer some type of early released programs, in this case probation and parole will briefly be discussed. Probation is a prison sentence that is suspended on the condition that the offender follow certain prescribed rules and commit no further crime (Seiter, 2008). Parole is similar to probation except that it is after a period of incarceration, which involved determinate and indeterminate sentencing (Seiter, 2008). The other types of prison sentencing include mandatory minimums, three-strike laws, and truth-in-sentencing (Wilson, 2001). The only difference is that a parole board allows convicts to serve the remainder of their term in society under supervision and strict limitations (Wilson, 2001). In summary both jails and prisons should strive to provide as much educational, health, and counseling opportunities as possible to reduce the likelihood of recidivism. Second, funding for the jail and prison systems will be briefly discussed.

In order to address recidivism rates in this matter treatment needs to concentrate on the individuals criminogenic needs, and then be followed up by aftercare. The offender should complete all programs, like halfway houses/community residential treatment facilities. These facilities need to be empathetic, accepting, and genuine in nature for rehabilitation to occur. (Loftus, lecture)

In the article “Evaluating reentry programming in Pennsylvania’s board of Probation & Parole: An assessment of offenders’ perceptions and recidivism outcomes” by Jesse S. Zortman, Thomas Powers, Michele Hiester, Frederick R. Klunk & Michael E. Antonio, explain the positive outcome of reentry programs for offenders under supervision. The research conducted used the outcomes from the Reentry Program in Pennsylvania, and focused on offender’s issues faced when reentering back into the community (Zortman, Powers, Hiester, Klunk & Antonio, 2016). Researchers Philips and Spencer pointed out the different factors which include education, employment, income, stable housing, family, substance abuse and health issues (Zortman et al., 2016). The reentry

Design: Campus, this allows for a more college-like atmosphere so inmates can focus on education, learning new skills, and how to adapt back into society.

It has been about six years since I last saw my cousin, who will remain anonymous, and unfortunately, the last time I saw him, it was through a thick sheet of bulletproof glass, talking over a telephone, in the county jail where he was being held during sentencing. I regret to say that this was not the first time I had seen him “behind bars”. As a matter of fact, I cannot even remember the last time I saw him when he was not wearing an orange jumpsuit. I know that when I was young, I always got picked on in school and he was the only person who stood up for me. He protected me and loved me the way only your favorite

Halfway houses are non-confining residential facilities intended to provide an alternative to incarceration as a period of readjustment to community for offenders after confinement. Halfway houses are used by parolees while they seek out employment and adjust to the outside world. Halfway houses aim to give the parolee a transitional shelter so that they may adjust and reintegrate into the community. Freedoms are often restricted and parolee activity is also monitored.