TRENTON >> Calling the results of self-administered drug tests “questionable,” State Sen. Shirley Turner (D-Mercer/Hunterdon) is proposing for greater oversight of the state’s halfway houses in response to series of Trentonian stories on Bo Robinson.
The Trenton halfway house was where two inmates were assigned, but escaped from their approved work site on March 13.
Four days later, they were both found dead of an apparent overdose in a room at Americas Best Value Inn in Cherry Hill, surrounded by a number of stamped bags and syringes. Both men, who were New Jersey Department of Corrections inmates, had opiates and cocaine in their system.
“It cries out for greater oversight,” Turner said Friday. “We want to make sure we prevent this from reoccurring. We don’t want anybody else to end up the same way as those two were found in Cherry Hill.”
In a Trentonian cover story last week, one of the men’s ex-fiancee detailed phone conversations with the inmate shortly before he escaped from Bo Robinson. In the story, she alleged the inmate told her on a smuggled-in cellphone that he could get any drug he wanted at Bo Robinson and admitted to smoking synthetic marijuana 10 days before he escaped.
This week, The Trentonian reported statistics provided by the state of drug tests conducted at Bo Robinson from January 2013 until March 2015.
The 22,474 tests administered by staff at the privately run facility resulted in four positives, a state spokesman reported.
For comparison, Mercer County, which also contracts its inmates to Bo Robinson, reported nine positive drug tests and one refusal from 584 tests in the same time period.
However, Mercer County – unlike the state – conducts its owns drug tests on Bo Robinson inmates.
“It’s like the fox guarding the hen house,” said Turner, who has been a longtime opponent of privatizing correctional facilities. “We don’t even know if they’re testing them.”
NJDOC spokesman Matthew Schuman previously said in an interview that the department provides testing kits to halfway houses the state contracts with and that the positive tests are sent back. The NJDOC spokesman explained that under the contract with Residential Community Release Program providers, like Bo Robinson, the vendor is responsible for administering urine tests.
But Turner is looking to change that.
Her bill would require the state to oversee random drug tests at the halfway houses.
“These numbers and the incidents involving residents at the Bo Robinson center call into question whether proper drug testing and supervision are taking place at private halfway houses,” Turner said. “This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed immediately in order to ensure the health, safety, and success of these inmates.”
On Friday, a state corrections spokeswoman declined comment when asked about Turner’s proposal.
Bo Robinson is operated by Education and Health Centers of America (EHCA), a nonprofit. The service provider at the site, Community Education Centers (CEC), is a for-profit entity that once shared CEOs with EHCA until earlier this year.
“Because you have a for-profit entity in corrections, you have to beware because they always make money based on the number of people they keep in their facilities,” Turner said. “They’re not there to rehabilitate. They’re there to make money and want to keep them there.”
Turner believes the 982-bed facility bearing the name of a former city North Ward councilman is also insulting.
“I know Bo Robinson would not have appreciated this kind of publicity about some facility with his name on it,” she said. “He was very committed to trying to improve the lives of everybody in the city of Trenton, particularly the downtrodden.”
Turner worries that if the purported drugs are not removed from Bo Robinson that inmates will not be rehabilitated for re-entry into society.
“It’s not going to do the inmates any good nor society,” she said, adding it is a waste of taxpayers’ money and inmates’ time. “If they’re still on drugs, it’s going to be a revolving door, it’s going to be the same thing all over again. They’re not going to get their lives back on track.”
