Criminals relegated to home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic will not return to prison, Merrick Garland and the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) announced, according to a Reuter’s.
In a recent statement, Garland responded to the Office of Legal Counsel's opinion to continue home confinement for current federal prisoners.
“Thousands of people in home confinement have reconnected with their families, have found gainful employment, and have followed the rules," Garland said in his statement.
Right now, the Bureau of Prisons has around 8,000 inmates serving sentences through home confinement, FOX News reports.
"In light of today’s Office of Legal Counsel opinion, I have directed that the Department engage in a rule-making process to ensure that the Department lives up to the letter and the spirit of the CARES Act,” Garland added.
According to the report, the total number of home-confined inmates between March 2020 and the present day is greater than 36,000 individuals, factoring in those who have completed sentences.
“We will exercise our authority so 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,” Garland said.
While the Office of Legal Council was asked to obey a Trump administration regulation requiring prisoners to be recalled from home confinement and placed in jail after the pandemic ended, FOX News reports it ultimately decided to give the Federal Bureau of Prisons “discretion to permit prisoners in extended home confinement to remain there."
This comes as Reuters reports advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Justice Action Network and FAMM have lobbied the DOJ in hopes of keeping criminals in home confinement and out of prison.
