Is this really a good idea?
In a stunning turn of events, President Biden’s Department of Justice has just given the green light to thousands of prisons and said that inmates who were moved out of prison and put on house arrest can now stay there even after the pandemic comes to an end.
According to the Washington Examiner, The Bureau of Prisons will not have to re-incarcerate over eight thousand prisoners who were released during the pandemic.
Biden’s move comes as a reversal to a decision former President Donald Trump made in January of last year that ordered all prisoners placed on house arrest to be placed back in physical prison cells like before when the pandemic started.
Furthermore, The Office of Legal Counsel memo says the new order will not require that prisoners in extended home confinement be returned en masse to prison facilities after the emergency period ends.
Attorney General Merrick Garland recently stated, “Thousands of people on home confinement have reconnected with their families, have found gainful employment, and have followed the rules. 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.”
When the pandemic initially began over 36,000 prisoners were placed on House Arrest under former President Donald Trump’s leadership after people died in jail from the coronavirus.