Embattled West Caldwell Prison Company Keeps Getting N.J. Contracts

WEST CALDWELL, NJ — Essex County officials have awarded a contract to manage 1,000 detainees in Newark to a West Caldwell prison management corporation that has faced stiff federal sanctions, scrutiny about inmate suicides and reportedly has ties to Gov. Chris Christie and Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr.

On Wednesday, the West Caldwell-based Community Education Centers Inc. (CEC) announced that Essex County’s “Alternative to Incarceration” program awarded it a contract to serve up to 1,000 male and female beds at Delaney Hall in Newark.

“We appreciate the trust Essex County has placed in us," CEO James Hyman said.

However, just three months earlier, the company faced a recent $4.8 million federal sanction for allegedly failing to pay prevailing wage and overtime rates to more than 100 detention officers at the same prison.

• See related article: Essex County and N.J. Prison Contractor Must Fork Out $4.8M In Back Pay

CEC also faced scrutiny in July of 2015 when the families of two inmates who hung themselves while incarcerated at one of its Pennsylvania prisons threatened legal action, charging that as many as seven suicides have taken place at the facility in a decade.

• See related article: West Caldwell-Based Prison Company Comes Under Scrutiny Following Suicides

WHO LIVES AT DELANEY HALL?

Delaney Hall houses county offenders that are referred through Essex County Department of Public Safety and state offenders referred through the New Jersey State Parole Board, the CEC website states.

It also serves as a detention facility for foreign nationals, including many nonviolent Central Americans who were recently apprehended at the U.S. and Mexico border or nearby international airports,” a 2014 blog on humanrightsfirst.org charges.

WHAT IS CEC?

According to its website, Community Education Centers Inc. – founded as a detox and treatment center in Hoboken - currently operates prisons in 16 states and the Commonwealth of Bermuda.

CEC-managed residential reentry facilities in New Jersey include the Albert M. Bo Robinson Assessment & Treatment Center in Trenton, Delaney Hall in Newark, The Harbor in Newark, Logan Hall/Toler House in Newark, Tully House in Newark and Talbot Hall in Kearny.

The prison corporation has also contracted with multiple governmental bodies in New Jersey, including a recent deal with Union County that transferred 200 of the county’s prisoners to one of CEC’s residential reentry centers in Newark.

The private firm reportedly has ties to Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. and Gov. Chris Christie via subcontracts with Education and Health Centers of America, the nonprofit affiliate of CEC.

• See related article: Essex County Freeholders Approve Immigration Detention Contract

Patch file photo: Delaney Hall, Newark

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