Despite being over-capacity and chronically short-staffed, two federal prison programs that allow people to live in their communities while serving their sentences if they are not likely to commit new crimes have either ended or could be coming to an end. Some advocates and former prison staffers say that could lead to an increase in the federal prison population at a time when resources are already strained, the Marshall Project reports. One program is The Elderly Offender Program, which allowed people 60 and older who had served most of their sentences, and were incarcerated for an offense categorized as non-violent or non-sexual, to be released to home confinement. That program started as pilot and expanded by the First Step Act in 2018. It expired in Septemeber.
The other program was part of the 2020 CARES Act which allowed people to finish their prison sentences at home, to ease overcrowding at the height of the pandemic. A statement from from President Joe Biden’s office in November said that of the more than 13,000 people released to home confinement under the CARES Act less than 1% committed a new offense, and most were for nonviolent, low-level offenses. But legislation, sponsored by Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, could force participants to return to prison. “Now that the COVID-19 emergency is over, the policy is no longer feasible,” Blackburn tweeted last month. Both liberal and conservative organizations have pushed back against these efforts to send people back to prison, citing data that shows the CARES program poses little public safety risk.
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