As Escapees Stream Out, a Penal Business Thrives (NY Times hit piece on Gov Christie)

After serving more than a year behind bars in New Jersey for assaulting a former girlfriend, David Goodell was transferred in 2010 to a sprawling halfway house in Newark. One night, Mr. Goodell escaped, but no one in authority paid much notice. He headed straight for the suburbs, for another young woman who had spurned him, and he killed her, the police said.

The state sent Rafael Miranda, incarcerated on drug and weapons charges, to a similar halfway house, and he also escaped. He was finally arrested in 2010 after four months at large, when, prosecutors said, he shot a man dead on a Newark sidewalk — just three miles from his halfway house.

Valeria Parziale had 15 aliases and a history of drugs and burglary. Nine days after she slipped out of a halfway house in Trenton in 2009, Ms. Parziale, using a folding knife, nearly severed a man’s ear in a liquor store. She was arrested and charged with assault but not escape. Prosecutors say they had no idea she was a fugitive.

After decades of tough criminal justice policies, states have been grappling with crowded prisons that are straining budgets. In response to those pressures, New Jersey has become a leader in a national movement to save money by diverting inmates to a new kind of privately run halfway house.

At the heart of the system is a company with deep connections to politicians of both parties, most notably Gov. Chris Christie.

NY Times deceptively attacks NJ Halfway Houses trying try to create a Willie Horton theme for Chris Christie. Since he lobbied for the owners of the privately run houses for a year or two, the NY Times makes him responsible for the terrible crimes these miscreants do after they escape. Meanwhile these houses have been there for decades through multiple administrations! (By they way, when have you heard the Times argue for longer sentences for violent criminals?)

This article is a sham on many levels and a pure political hit piece. I cannot believe they continue to carry water for the Democrats in such a blatantly ham-handed way. It is almost humorous, and Saturday Night Live like in the absurdity of this connection, if it wasn't so mendacious in its propaganda. An abuse of the First Amendment!

This is a grotesque example of sickening Times bias, and that is one mountain of excrement their writers needed to climb to plant this flag.

Does NJ have a severe violent crime problem in their heavily Democratic precincts - you are damn right they do!

We should use this NY Times article as justification to reinstate the death penalty and then actually use it. I works! those executed never commit another homocide or any other violent crime again. The best deterant of all.

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