Angry people living close to a halfway house from where serious sex offender Ivan Andrew Campbell fled want the institution to improve its security.

Merivale residents say they are terrified of the types of prison inmates who are paroled to the Salisbury Street Foundation home in St Albans St.

They also say it is wrong that the foundation is in the heart of suburban Christchurch and close to schools and childcare facilities.

Ivan Campbell, 46, and another foundation resident, Jaydon Galland, 18, were caught by armed police near Arthurs Pass yesterday, after being on the run since last Wednesday.

An associate, Jamie Campbell, also known as Alexander Paul Jones, has been charged with helping them escape.

All three were to appear in the Christchurch District Court today.

Campbell was paroled to the foundation in June after serving 11 years of a 14-year sentence for an attack on a 14-year-old boy in 2001.

He chained him up in a wardrobe and abused him during a week of sadistic sex.

In 1996, he was jailed in Australia for nine years for arson attacks on a Salvation Army hostel for homeless men and the devastation of the business centre of Beaudesert, southwest of Brisbane.

Merivale Precinct Society chairman Chris Aynsley said nearby residents were living in terror.

They will seek answers from Salisbury about its security because it was "putting the community at risk".

"There are some ghastly people that go there. The whole neighbourhood watch that facility like hawks. Residents are terrified. If offenders can just walk out of this facility and into the community then it's putting us at risk," he said.

The foundation is a private trust which contracts its services to government agencies.

Said Mr Aynsley: "It's terrible. There are 11 schools, churches, childcare facilities, a shopping centre and where this facility is, is right on a metro bus lines route in our area."

Foundation director Lyn Voice did not return calls to the Star yesterday.