Attorney general exercises new authority to move inmates to home confinement due to emergency.
Attorney General Bill Barr is ordering federal prison officials to intensify their efforts to release “vulnerable” inmates at three prison complexes that are struggling to contain major outbreaks of the coronavirus.
Barr said he’s seeking to speed the process of sending selected inmates at prisons in Danbury, Conn., Oakdale, La., and Elkton, Ohio to home confinement because of the danger serious levels of infection at those facilities pose to elderly prisoners and those with pre-existing health conditions.
“We are experiencing significant levels of infection at several of our facilities,” Barr said in the new memo dated Friday and obtained by POLITICO Friday night. “We have to move with dispatch in using home confinement, where appropriate, to move vulnerable inmates out of these institutions.”
Barr also said he was exercising for the first time expanded release authority Congress granted him in the stimulus bill known as the Cares Act that was signed into law by President Donald Trump last Friday.
Under previous law, federal prisoners were only eligible for home confinement after they’d completed 90 percent of their sentences. However, the new legislation allows for earlier releases if the attorney general formally declares an emergency, which he did Friday.
“The CARES Act now authorizes me to expand the cohort of inmates who can be considered for home release upon my finding that emergency conditions are materially affecting the functioning of the Bureau of Prisons,” Barr wrote. “I hereby make that finding and direct that … you give priority in implementing these new standards to the most vulnerable inmates at the most affected facilities.”
Seven federal prisoners have died from COVID-19 so far: five at the Louisiana prison Barr is prioritizing and two at the Ohio facility.
The tallies of infected inmates and prison staff have grown daily. As of Friday, 91 federal inmates were confirmed to be infected with the virus, up from 75 a day earlier. Confirmed staff infections rose to 50 from 39.
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Attorney General Bill Barr is ordering federal prison officials to intensify their efforts to release “vulnerable” inmates at three prison complexes that are struggling to contain major outbreaks of the coronavirus https://t.co/VCDSbsbcwd
— POLITICO (@politico) April 4, 2020
And again, these guys wonder why gun sales are on the rise.
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