CARES Act for Home Confinement

Today I'm just writing about current events. No flash backs.  I just had an old goat die out in the pasture. Thankfully, my good neighbors -- who came over yesterday to sweat over my lawnmower maintenance and put new spark plugs in it because it was getting ready to quit on me -- came over again today to drag the dead goat into the woods for me.  It put me in mind of the last time I had to dispose of a dead goat while Tom was out of town.  Looking back on it, it's kind of hilarious.  Maybe some day I'll find this day hilarious....not likely. 

Okay, that's not my main topic. That's just one of the joys of living single on a farm. And thank goodness for neighbors!

What I really want to do is explain the early release program that Tom is eligible for. It's called the CARES Act and is part of the COVID relief program for prisons.  It allows for certain, nonviolent inmates to be released to serve out their term in home confinement.  Lest anyone freak out that "CRIMINALS ARE GETTING OUT OF PRISON!" just simmer down. Here are the discretionary factors that the BOP officials have to consider:

(1) The age and vulnerability of the inmate to Covid. So, like, if they're 60+ or have other comorbidities that make them more susceptible to Covid. Tom fits the category because he's 60 and he's had pneumonia twice before.

(2) The security level of the facility, with priority given to inmates residing in low and minimum security facilities.  Tom fits this category because he's in the most minimum security he can be in, a satellite camp.

(3) The inmate's conduct in prison with violent or gang-related activity making the inmate ineligible.  Tom has no violent or gang-related record.

(4) The inmate's PATTERN (this is how they score the inmate's crime and behavior) score with anything above a minimum score not receiving priority.  Tom's score is in the negative numbers, so also as low as you can go.

(5) The inmate has to have a verifiable re-entry plan that will prevent recidivism and maximize public safety, including demonstrating the inmate would be at lower risk of contracting Covid in home confinement than he would in the facility.  Tom is eligible here because he has a home to go to that is isolated from the public if we need to isolate.

(6) Sex offenders and other serious offenses weight heavily against the inmate.  A no brainer here.

So since Tom has an 18 month sentence, the rules say that he has to serve 25% of his sentence.  [The percent is different for different sentences.  I don't even know how they come up with that.  It sounds like something completely arbitrary.  It's like they're sitting around and one guy says, "How much time should they serve before they're eligible to not get COVID in prison?" Another guy says, "Hey, how about 25%!". And they agree, "Yeah, that sounds good."]  For some reason, the first week they go into the prison, they automatically accumulate their time off for good behavior days.  They have some kind of way to calculate that.  And I suppose if you're a bad boy, they take away good behavior days.  So Tom automatically had 80 something good behavior days and those are supposed to count as time served.  It's weird and confusing. But suffice it to say that he will have served his 25% and be eligible to be released for home confinement on September 12, 2021. That's in less than two weeks. Which I would be super excited about if I thought for a minute the BOP would move as quickly as I would.

His case manager has prepared the paperwork and it's ready to go to the review panel for (hopefully) approval. Although, she set the release date forSeptember. I'm not sure how she calculated it to come up with that time frame. However, they also have to get approval from the probation office who will supervise him in his home confinement. They don't move very quickly either. And I found out today that the request has not even been made yet.  So we've been waiting all week to hear from the probation office, but they don't even have the request.  It's things like this that will drive you insane.  I've been on the phone for a long time today trying to figure out what needs to be done.  And this is a holiday weekend, so the person that needs to take action didn't come into work today.

Seriously, you have to stay on top of things to get anything done.  And even then, nobody has any sense of urgency.  You'd think if they were actually trying to prevent COVID in prisons that (1) they wouldn't put people who are eligible for home confinement in the prison in the first place, and (2) they would have a sense of urgency to get them out of there as quickly as possible.  But, no.  And the BOP doesn't even have to approve the request.  They do deny some even without a reason.  Praying, praying that they approve Tom's request and quickly.