In the YouTube video linked below, I’m at the Federal Halfway House in West Palm Beach, Florida which houses about 200 men and women. It is a gated facility that typically accommodates individuals for periods ranging from a few weeks to as long as a year, depending on how quickly they are released from prison or how early their move occurs.
The federal government and the Bureau of Prisons are no longer building or creating new halfway houses. Imagine a funnel, with roughly 100,000 or more people in the Bureau of Prisons system, all trying to funnel into a finite number of bed spaces. The competition for each bed is intense.
Unlike the Bureau of Prisons, where if beds are unavailable near your home, they can move bed space around, with halfway houses, you could be assigned to a district far from your residence. There is significant competition for these limited spots.
The key questions then become: How can you differentiate yourself and secure one of those coveted bed spaces? More importantly, how can you minimize the amount of time you spend in the halfway house or even avoid it altogether?
When I got out from the camp after serving 21 of my 61 months, I avoided the halfway house completely and ended up serving about 14 months of home confinement instead.
While we won’t delve into the specifics of how to achieve that in this video, you must understand that the ultimate goal of an effective post-sentencing program is to spend the least amount of time away from your family. If that means getting out of prison as quickly as possible and having to go to a halfway house for a period, how can you do that? How can you spend the least amount of time there, or ultimately, avoid it altogether and go straight to home confinement?
These are all tools, tactics, and strategies we can discuss if you’d like to contact me. Feel free to give me a call or email me. I’m also creating a webpage, so I encourage you to look at that as well. The key is minimizing the time you spend away from your loved ones during this challenging process.