Christmas comes a few days early for 2,800 inmates who had told they’d eventually have to return to their cells to serve out their terms.
Thousands of federal prisoners put into home confinement for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic may not have to return to prison cells after the crisis is over, according to a new analysis by the Department of Justice (DOJ). In March 2020, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, a massive pandemic-related aid and spending bill. Among its many provisions, it granted the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) the authority to release some federal prisoners and put them in home confinement for as long as the government classified the pandemic as a national emergency. This was a mechanism for attempting to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in prisons. More than 4,800 federal prisoners were placed into home confinement under the CARES Act. In the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration, the DOJ released a determination that after the federal government declared that the pandemic emergency was over, those inmates who had been released under the CARES Act would have to return to prison, regardless of how well they had behaved on home release. This determination inspired a wave of criminal justice activism as President Joe Biden took office and reformers lobbied the White House and DOJ to do something to stop this from happening. Many of these inmates had rejoined their families and some had even found work. They were contributing to society. Recidivism rates among them were extremely low; as of July, the criminal justice reform organization Brennan Center estimated that roughly 20 had violated the terms of their release.
