Halfway House Stores Stolen Property

(Sidney, Maine) The staff at HealthReach Hearthside, a halfway house for substance-abuse and mental-health patients, claims to conduct random room checks of the facility, but they apparently missed looking into Roland Jalbert's 10-by-12-foot room. If they had, they would have found that it was packed with stolen property worth as much as $35,000 from an estimated 40 burglaries. Police arrested Jalbert, 49, who has a history of burglary convictions and has confessed to some of the recent break-ins. According to the halfway director, Gerry Dunn, he had no idea that Jalbert was storing stolen merchandise at the facility.

I suggest the halfway director institute a policy of checking all rooms at random times as opposed to checking random rooms and allowing some to go unchecked. If all rooms are checked, criminal activity will be noticed. Of course, this incident begs the question of what else is going on at the halfway house.

Hopefully the halfway director isn't lauded in his next performance evaluation. Personally, I'd have a hard time going even half way toward praising his work.