WASHINGTON - Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the Bureau of Prisons to allow federal inmates released to remain at home because of the Covid epidemic.
Garland's directive reverses a Trump administration decision that would have required many of those released to return to their prison cells.
Thousands of people on home confinement have reconnected with their families, have found gainful employment and have followed the rules, Garland said.
He said that we will exercise our authority to ensure that those who have made rehabilitative progress and complied with the conditions of home confinement, and who in the interests of justice should be given an opportunity to continue transitioning back to society, are not unnecessarily returned to prison.
In passing the CARES Act, the federal government's response to the outbreak of the epidemic, Congress allowed the release of some prisoners last year based on their age, health, and length of remaining sentence. William Barr, who was then attorney general, acted to allow the release after five inmates died of Covid-related illnesses in Louisiana and Ohio.
In January, the Office of Legal Counsel of the department said that federal law required many of those inmates to return. A memo issued Tuesday said that it did not require that prisoners in extended home confinement be returned to correctional facilities when the emergency period ends. The Bureau of Prisons has the discretion to allow prisoners in extended home confinement to remain there, it concluded.
More than 35,000 inmates were released to home confinement, according to the Justice Department. Nearly 3,000 of those with longer sentences would have to return to prison under the previous policy, which declared that home detention was meant to be temporary.
The ex-lawyer of former President Donald Trump was Michael Cohen, the most well-known federal inmate to benefit from the home confinement policy. He was released in May of 2020, about 18 months before he was scheduled to be let out.
Five days before the end of the Trump administration, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel said the release authority would expire 30 days after the president declared an end to the national pandemic emergency. After that, the memo said that those who were released would have to return to prison. Tuesday's memo reached the opposite conclusion.