Has DOJ Relaxed Internal 50% Rule Requirement for CARES Release?
Mixed Signals Confuse Prisoners, Staff.
by Derek Gilna
A press
release by a respected prisoner advocacy organization electrified prisoners and their families in the past week
by stating the following: "We’re grateful that that the new administration
heeded the widespread calls to make more people eligible for home
confinement...The original criteria were too narrow. These changes will protect
vulnerable people in federal prisons."
Great news, if it is true. There is one small problem: no official memo has been released to the public as of today, so it remains officially "Unconfirmed.".
Despite this confusion, there is a lot of good news to report. Senate Judiciary committee members this week grilled the federal prison director on a variety of significant issues. Some of the highlights: (1. DOJ has NO immediate plans to send thousands of inmates released to home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic back to prison. "We're going to use good judgment and common sense and work within the law," and not "arbitrarily" disrupt peoples' lives by forcing them to return to prison. Senators noted that only three (3) people released on home confinement have been rearrested. (2. The director confirmed that the state of emergency needed to continue CARES releases was extended by the President. (3. Senators blistered the director for continued COVID prison outbreaks and pressed him to do more to release medically-vulnerable prisoners, authority that DOJ already has.
4. Senator
Charles Grassley of
The
non-partisan Marshall Project said that the federal prison system, "remains
opaque, having failed to report (COVID) positive tests and deaths, despite
being responsible for more infections than any state prison system, and has no
required testing or reporting of rate of infection for guards. 'People who work
in prisons are an essential part of the equation that will lead to reduced
disease and less chance of renewed explosive COVID-19 outbreaks in the future,'
said Brie Williams, a correctional health expert at the University of
California, San Francisco (UCSF).' tps://themarshallproject.us. However, at
And the
deaths continue to pile up. Most recently, two prisoner died at MCFP Springfield, and one each at
Others, like Coleman and
Approximately
5,800 fully vaccinated Americans — out of 66 million who received the shots —
still became infected ... according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention in data reported Thursday. People who are older or those with
compromised immune systems may not be able to launch a robust immune response
to the vaccine and build up enough antibodies to ward off infections, doctors
explained. www.cdc.com. www.wsj.com,
I have my
own opinions regarding the adequacy of treatment for COVID. Having been forced
into close contact with medical professionals for many years on behalf of
friends and family, I learned to ask blunt, specific, and embarrassing
(annoying?) questions regarding what they know and do not know, and came to
this conclusion: doctors DO NOT have all of the answers, especially when it
relates to a new disease like COVID. Although there has been much research done
on COVID, much remains to be learned. The reason that the usage of the Johnson
and Johnson vaccine was temporarily paused, was not that it is any more
dangerous than any other vaccine, but that the CDC felt it needed at least a
week to educate medical professionals to make sure that they knew how to
recognize and provide the proper treatment for very rare blood clotting side
effect (6 confirmed cases out of millions of doses.) If you do not have an allergy to vaccines,
take the shot if offered. Little attention has
been paid to the long-term impact of Covid-19 on people of all ages who may be
called survivors but who may need long-term health care or other
support. Associated Press. “It’s important for us to say we don’t know. We
don’t how to care for these people in the long-term,” said Dr. Dan Fagbuyi, a
pediatric emergency medicine physician in
Unfortunately,
the built-in medical treatment limitations in the federal prison system
essentially means that serious life-threatening conditions-as well as COVID-often
go undiagnosed, and untreated, resulting in death.
Prisoner stimulus checks continue to be coming in slow for many. A federal judge issued a nationwide injunction ordering the processing of these checks, requiring all prisons to cooperate in their receipt and distribution. However, remember that paper returns take longer to process. The first payments COULD be held for past-due child support, but not the second or third. If you got the first two payments, you should automatically get the third. However, wait a month before re-filing a 2020 1040 for the most recent payment, since many checks and payments have not yet arrived for even people on the outside. Unless you have a secure home address, get the payment sent to the lockbox, not the prison address. Do you want that guy in the prison mailroom handling your check?
Federal
Courts continue to grant First Step sentence relief for Compassionate Release,
"Stacking" convictions, and reversing denials based upon 1B1.13(2)
denials.
Be not afraid, and let not your heart be troubled.
