[quote=@Mokley]
[@SepticGentleman] This is wonderful and unsettling -- a sentence far more frightening than prison. I'm imagining what sort of community would send people there, and for what range of delinquency -- and whether that community might have an alarming population of half-mites, if the halfway house is such a reliable, easy "fix" for the less desirables.
[/quote]

The villagers are threatened into regularly sending people to the Halfway House, regardless of their criminal records, by Mother Izaazs and her underlings. They have some half-mites toiling for them, but prefer to not keep so many around.