Community Education Centers

Community Education Centers abbreviated CEC was a private for-profit prison company based in West Caldwell, New Jersey and active in seventeen American states and in Bermuda.

In June, 2007 CEC acquired another operator of private prisons, CiviGenics.

In 2011, New Jersey and its counties spent about $105 million on halfway houses. Of that amount, about $71 million went to Community Education Centers.

The firm operates fourteen jails, mostly in Texas. Its largest “secure facility” is the George W. Hill Correctional Facility in Thornbury Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania with a capacity of 1,883. It also has contracts for twenty six “residential reentry” facilities, more commonly called “halfway houses.” The largest of these is Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey with a capacity of 1,196. It also offers a number of residential treatment programs funded by Native American tribes in six states.

In addition to contracts with cities, counties and states, the firm also provides "reentry services" in four states to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

In June, 2012, The New York Times published the results of a 10-month-long investigation into the halfway houses operated by the firm in New Jersey. Almost three quarters of one group of inmates at a New Jersey facility tested positive for various drugs. Although government contracts required inmates be provided therapy and job training no such programs were offered. The company is described in the press as having close ties to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. At the time the company's senior vice president was William J. Palatucci, a close friend and advisor to Governor Christie. He and the governor's brother Todd Christie co-chaired the governor's inaugural committee.[16]

The firm is paid about seventy dollars a day to house each inmate, about half the cost of a prisoner held in a state-run facility. Some of the inmates in the facilities retain connections to gangs. The Delaney Hall facility, for example, includes inmates affiliated with the Bloods. Drugs are widely available at least at the New Jersey sites covered by The New York Times' report.

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