halfway house

1. A rehabilitation center where people who have left an institution, such as a hospital or prison, are helped to readjust to the outside world.
2. A stopping place, such as an inn, that marks the midpoint of a journey.

A residence established to assist persons who have left highly structured institutions to adjust to and reenter society and live within its accepted norms. Mental patients and prisoners may be released to facilities of this kind located within the community and usually with no security other than supervised regimen of sign-in, sign-out, and curfew rules. Release to halfway houses is sometimes a first step in a parole program. Modern statutes permit courts to sentence defendants directly to such facilities, known as residential community treatment centers as a condition of probation.

A work-release program may utilize a halfway house instead of a more secure institution for nighttime confinement and weekend supervision. The halfway house provides a "supervised and restricted environment in which to ascertain the convict's ability to form a productive life in society [while simultaneously fulfilling] the functions of a penal institution in its concern for security and rehabilitation." 400 F. Supp. 1046, 1048.

Although states are not required to utilize such modern correctional concepts as halfway houses, if they choose to do so, the procedures for assigning inmates to such facilities must meet standards of procedural due process and equal protection of the laws. 617 F. 2d 996.

A rehabilitation facility for individuals, such as mental patients or substance abusers, who no longer require the complete facilities of a hospital or other institution but who are not yet prepared to return to their communities.

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