As Storm Raged, 15 Fled New Jersey Halfway House
By SAM DOLNICK
Published: November 11, 2012
When the power failed at Logan Hall, a sprawling halfway house in Newark that resembles a prison, the rooms went dark.
Richard Perry/The New York Times
Logan Hall in Newark. All but one of the 15 inmates who escaped have been recaptured.
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Then the locks clicked open.
What happened next is likely to fuel the debate over the future of the large, privately run halfway houses in New Jersey, which have been criticized for mismanagement and lax oversight.
As Hurricane Sandy raged outside, dozens of male inmates burst into Logan Hall’s corridors. They threatened female inmates, tore apart furniture and ripped signs inscribed with inspirational sayings from the walls, witnesses said.
At least 15 inmates escaped from the halfway house, including some who had served time for aggravated assault, weapons possession and armed robbery.
It was one of the largest mass escapes in the recent history of New Jersey’s corrections system, according to official statistics. All but one of the escapees have since been recaptured.
After the violence broke out on Oct. 29, about 50 law enforcement officers from at least four state and county agencies converged on Logan Hall, officials said. Many were called at home and told to report immediately to the halfway house.
Community Education Centers, the politically connected company that runs the 650-bed halfway house, appears to have done little if anything to prepare for the storm. The workers on duty, many of whom were poorly paid, did not know how to operate the backup generator, witnesses said. They did not even have flashlights.
Gov. Chris Christie has long been an outspoken supporter of Community Education, which dominates the halfway house system in New Jersey. The Christie administration has not publicly disclosed that there was a disturbance that night at Logan Hall.
Mr. Christie’s close friend and political adviser, William J. Palatucci, is a senior executive at Community Education. Mr. Palatucci announced last week that he would step down from the company. The company said the resignation was not related to the events at Logan Hall.
A spokesman for Mr. Christie referred questions about Logan Hall to the State Department of Corrections.
Both the Corrections Department and Community Education played down the violence and the escapes.
“To characterize this as some sort of mass prison break is a reckless exaggeration in support of a false narrative,” a department spokesman, Matthew Schuman, said.
He said any assessment of what happened had to take into consideration “the extraordinary circumstances” of the storm.
Community Education said in a statement, “A small number of the 547 residents did take advantage of the storm to create a minor disturbance and damaged a few vending machines.”
The company noted that no one suffered serious injuries at Logan Hall, and added that it did not experience problems during the storm at its five other large halfway houses in New Jersey.
Law enforcement officials, workers and others who were at Logan Hall acknowledged that Hurricane Sandy was highly unusual and caused difficulties for institutions across the New York region.
But they pointed out that none of New Jersey’s prisons or jails suffered such a violent outbreak during the storm.
Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark, whose police force responded to the disturbance, called it “obviously a serious event.”
David Thomas, executive director of the State Parole Board, said in a statement that the disturbance was quelled by officers from four law enforcement agencies: the Newark police, the Essex County Sheriff’s Department, the Essex County Corrections Department and the Parole Board.
Essex County officials said they were investigating what happened and had assigned extra law enforcement officers to Logan Hall, which typically houses parolees and inmates from the county jail.
Democratic lawmakers in Trenton have called for an overhaul of the halfway houses since The New York Times published a series of articles in June that described escapes, violence, drug use and other problems in the system.
Since 2005, roughly 5,200 inmates and parolees have escaped from the state’s halfway houses, according to state records. Corrections experts said the high number of escapes was an indication that the system was troubled. The Christie administration has said in recent months that it has put in place measures to crack down on the escapes.
New Jersey has been at the forefront of the movement to use privately operated halfway houses to reduce corrections costs. The system handles thousands of inmates annually.
The disturbance at Logan Hall may have an impact on the Legislature’s scrutiny of the system.
Assemblyman Charles Mainor, a Hudson County Democrat who is chairman of the Law and Public Safety Committee, said he was troubled that the administration had not disclosed what happened.
“I did not know,” Mr. Mainor said. “Of course, they wouldn’t want me to know.”
A law enforcement officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to a reporter, recounted harrowing moments early on when the disturbance could have spiraled out of control. “The place was turned upside down,” said Joe Amato, president of the union representing Essex County corrections officers, which has long opposed the privately run halfway houses. “The inmates basically rioted.”
At one point, a group of men, many wearing improvised masks that revealed only their eyes, headed toward the back of the building, where the female inmates were held, according to workers and correction officers.
A supervisor tried to stop them, demanding to know where they were going.
“You know why we’re here!” an inmate replied, according to a halfway house worker and a corrections officer who were there.
The supervisor managed to fend them off. Workers then took the group of female inmates to a closed-off reception area, where they huddled together for safety until law enforcement officers arrived.
“With the power out, no generator, no flashlights — you can’t not be scared,” said a worker who was there.
Dozens of men then headed through the unlocked front door to an open lot facing the street. They took blankets to throw over the barbed wire and chairs to scale the fence, but soon saw that the equipment was unnecessary.
The gate was open.
Six of those who escaped were arrested quickly. Six others were caught more than three days later. Two were on the run for about a week, and one is still missing, officials said.
When calm was restored, corrections officers and workers said they discovered that one target of the inmates’ rage had been the signs in the hallways.
The signs bore motivational slogans like “Stop Lying” and “Admit When You Are Wrong.” They had been torn down and stomped on.
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