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For many inmates of the Federal Bureau of Prisons confinement to a halfway house marks both the final stage of the prison experience and the beginning of the post-prison experience. While technically still in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, inmates are expected to prepare themselves for release from custody while in residence in a halfway house and, the staff of these facilities are expected to aid in that process. I have decided to analyze a particular halfway house and the time inmates spent there within the theoretical concept of ´rite de passage´ in order to highlight the transitional nature of both the inmates residing there and of the facility themselves. Before showing how inmates at this facility are best understood as liminal personae, I will first create a general history of halfway houses and then placed them and their use within the Federal Bureau of Prison´s within that history. Once halfway houses have been situated within a particular historical context, I then locate this facility within a specific community and set out to provide a description of inmate´s lived experiences while residing there.

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