![]() ![]() Lawyers and social workers at the Federal Defenders of New York, a nonprofit legal group that provides lawyers to federal inmates, said services were so threadbare that they tried to keep their clients away from the Brooklyn halfway house when possible. ![]() In Community First’s first year running the Brooklyn halfway house, the number of escapes nearly doubled, to 27, when compared with the previous year, federal statistics show. At night, they talk on cellphones, which are supposed to be banned drink alcohol hidden in water bottles and smoke synthetic marijuana, called K2, the five inmates said. Some of them pass the time playing cards, ordering takeout food and watching videos, including pornographic ones. Inside the halfway house, inmates often have little to do and receive few services, according to interviews with defense lawyers and five inmates. Inmates entering and leaving the building on work-release programs had to run a gantlet of drug dealers on the street.Īt its present location, a neighbor has noticed suspicious activity, saying she had twice seen people smuggling packages into the building by lowering ropes from the second floor to the sidewalk. Today, a year after the contract went into effect, the 161-bed halfway house run by Community First Services has already had three addresses in Brooklyn.Įven though the federal government is paying Community First Services $98 a day for each inmate, one of the three locations was in the basement of a rundown hotel crammed between a junkyard and a homeless shelter. The Brooklyn facility is supposed to be a pillar in an expanding system of federal halfway houses, which are intended to help inmates after they are released from federal prison by arranging for counseling, drug treatment and jobs.īut the contract has instead illustrated how the federal government, like New Jersey and some other states, has faced considerable difficulties regulating these places, even as it entrusts more and more inmates to them. And the group declared that, as its name suggested, it had consulted closely with leading community organizations about setting up the federal halfway house in Brooklyn.īut none of these claims are true, an investigation by The New York Times showed. Brown III, whom it portrayed as a veteran of gulf war combat with deep expertise in air-defense artillery. On its Web site and in its bids for contracts, Community First promoted its extensive experience doing work for government agencies, including New York City’s Department of Juvenile Justice and the federal Department of Health and Human Services.Ĭommunity First hailed the vision of its founder, Jack A. ![]() Seeking an operator for a major halfway house in Brooklyn, the federal government awarded a $29 million contract to a nonprofit group with a promising name, Community First Services, and impressive credentials. ![]()
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