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Halfway House On Probation: Rowdy Behavior Cited

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Nov 22, 2008 10:34 pm US/Mountain

Halfway House On Probation: Rowdy Behavior Cited

DENVER (CBS4) ― An Arapahoe County halfway house has been placed on probation until next June after residents were found to be drinking, others were leaving the secure facility in the middle of the night without authorization and still other clients said staff members were accepting bribes for looking the other way.

"It's unfortunate staff members violated the trust we have given them," said Mike Koob, Operations Vice President for Correctional Management Inc., the company that operates the halfway house.

In late July, an offender at Centennial Community Transition Center, located at 14485 East Fremont Ave., told a staff member about numerous security lapses.

That led supervisors to conduct a surprise 1:30 a.m. inspection on July 26. They found four clients were missing from the facility without authorization. All four had stuffed their beds with clothes to suggest they were still there and sleeping. One was serving a four year sentence for felony vehicular eluding.  Another was serving a one year sentence for felony menacing. All four offenders tested positive for alcohol when they returned after being gone for several hours.

One later wrote a statement saying he  paid a corrections technician $100 to allow him to leave the facility at about 11:45 pm. "This has been going on for a couple of weeks," the man wrote.

Breathalyzer tests given to other clients showed ten were positive for alcohol.

Three days after the surprise inspection, another offender told a manager that a staff member was taking $100 bribes in exchange for allowing clients to provide clean urine samples for each other.

All that prompted the Arapahoe County Community Corrections Board to call a special emergency meeting Aug. 4 demanding answers from CMI, the operator of the halfway house.

Board member John Jordan said his biggest concern was 'community safety'. Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chambers made a motion to remove all violent offenders from CCTC and only allow the facility to take property offenders. But the board voted 12-1 against that motion.

Correctional Management subsequently fired three staff members involved in the halfway house shenanigans. Eight offenders involved in the July incidents were sent back to jail to complete their sentences.

On Oct. 16, the Arapahoe County Community Corrections Board placed CCTC on probation until June 30, 2009. Arapahoe County Community Resources Director Don Klemme said it was the first time the community corrections board had placed a halfway house on probation.

In an Oct. 20 letter to the corrections board, CMI Vice President Mike Koob wrote that "CMI took the situation at CCTC seriously and responded immediately and decisively."

In another letter from CMI to the community corrections board, the company said it "hired staff that chose not to live up to the responsibility and trust placed upon them in their positions...CMI believes this is a very serious and unfortunate incident."

The company said since the July discoveries, it has made several changes including random, unannounced facility visits.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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