52,561 prison inmates were placed on home confinement between March 26, 2020 and January 23, 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of them have already finished their sentences according to the Department of Justice (DOJ), but 3,434 of them remain on home confinement under the CARES Act.
According to the Daily Beast [1], the DOJ is not making those 3,000+ convicted criminals go back to jail even though the pandemic has been accepted as “over” for a while now.
The DOJ released a clarification [2] this week that says the inmates placed on the home confinement under the CARES Act won’t be automatically sent back to prison when the Biden-Harris administration lifts the public heath emergency which is expected to expire on May 11. Instead, they will be able to complete the rest of their sentences at home provided they remain “compliant.” For those who don’t, the Bureau of Prisons has the discretion to return inmates to prison or impose sanctions if they commit infractions.
The new rule says, “[The] Department’s interpretation is that any ambiguity in the CARES Act should be read to provide the Director with discretion to allow inmates placed in home confinement who have been successfully serving their sentences in the community to remain there, rather than require the Director to return such inmates to secure custody en masse without making an individualized assessment or identifying a penological, rehabilitative, public health, or public safety basis for the action.”
This decision, not surprisingly, was pushed by Senate Dems, criminal justice advocates and Attorney General Merrick Garland who don’t want the poor criminals to have to serve any more time in jail.
This is an un-do of a Trump rule that said the inmates must be recalled to prison at the end of the public health emergency. What Trump stops, Biden restarts. What Trump implements, Biden stops. It’s how Biden and the Democrats operate.
Dem Senators Durbin and Booker wrote a letter to President Disaster to get this new rule done and asked Biden to “act immediately” to “enable those on release to move forward with their lives.” They also said, “Given the breadth of available executive authority, no person who has successfully transitioned to home confinement should be required to return to federal prison.”
Yes, the pro-criminal Democrats continue to work for justice – justice for the criminals, not so much so for the rest of us.
Attorney General Merrick Garland laughably said in a statement, “The Justice Department is committed to protecting the safety of our communities…”
Yes, it looks like he’s doing a fine job.