From left, Warden Robert Balicki, Mercer County Corrections Local 167 members Greg Victor, Jowana Phillips, President Don Ryland, State Delegate Winslow Land and Cumberland County Corrections Local 231 State Delegate Victor Bermudez look on as Mr. Schulze sends up his musical tribute to the Steps to Freedom program.
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has become widely known in law enforcement, the business of corrections has led opportunistic( read: greedy) companies and cost conscious( think: greedy) elected officials to follow the money. They should follow this: The Cumberland County Corrections re-entry program is saving the county more than $ 3 million per year.
But the value might be even greater to a community like Mercer County where the conundrum of a privatized halfway house continues to wreak havoc. The Bo Robinson Assessment and Treatment Center, a private facility in Trenton, has imploded with inmate overdoses, drugs being smuggled in and inmates experiencing literally an open-door opportunity to come and go as they please and threaten the safety of the community at large.
So Local 167 decided to use this opportunity to gather information for a presentation to Mercer County Freeholders about putting the inmates – especially drug offenders – in the charge of the professionals who can do the best for them: corrections officers.
“ This is a way to keep our product above reproach,” appraises Warden Balicki, a former Local leader who has a PBA gold card and began eight years ago building what has become Steps to Freedom.“ We have to defend who we are as corrections officers because we offer the things halfway houses don’ t have, and in a way that is not corrupt.”
Object of Our Corrections
Steps to Freedom is the latest in a series of arguments against the value of prison privatization. In August, the Department of Justice issued a report in which Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates noted the DOJ plans to stop using private prisons because they,“ simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and, as noted in a recent report by the Department’ s Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security.”
The NJ State PBA has been aggressively battling prison privatization the past few years, including helping Union County Corrections Local 199 defeat a movement to close the Union County jail in 2015. State President Pat Colligan has also testified to freeholders in Mercer and other counties to try to talk sense into those who seem to be all about the dollars.
The argument about rehabilitating drug offenders at halfway houses or private medical facilities has led to more repeat offenders than those who become tax-paying citizens and are no longer a threat to community safety. New Jersey NAACP President Richard Smith, who is working to help the Steps to Freedom“ graduates” get jobs and get back into the community, noted that to his knowledge all that has happened in the private medical facilities is that services went down, inmates went down with injuries – or worse – and nurses were getting pregnant.
Bo Robinson’ s lack of professional officers also has only led to a catch-22 which Smith describes as an atmosphere where the outside world can sneak in the junk that keeps the inmates from getting past their addictions and getting home to their families. Such is the level of service that comes from the“ security guards” who are hired at the halfway houses. You pay $ 10 an hour and you get $ 10 worth of security.
“ We foresaw privatized halfway houses failing if only because they pay at a fraction of the cost,” Bermudez reminds.
Let Freedom Bring
The view from the inside indicates the inmates would rather be here than at an outside facility.
Mr. Schulze – the“ clients,” as they are known, are each addressed with the title connoting respect that is the foundation of this part of the facility and an aspect the officers are charged with ensuring – explains his preference by recounting how he has been in facilities in Camden, Gloucester and other counties. But it is in this program he has finally followed the steps to freedom.
“ In one of those rehabs on the street, if I get upset, I can just climb out a window,” Mr. Schulze reports.“ This is the first time I have ever been incarcerated where I can stop and do some-
30 NEW JERSEY COPS ■ NOVEMBER 2016