Attorney General Barr issues new memo calling for BOP to "move with dispatch" to get vulnerable inmates out of federal prison COVID hot-spots

As reported in this new Politico piece, headlined "Barr to speed releases at federal prisons hard hit by virus," it appears that the US Attorney General is coming to understand the dire situation being created by COVID-19 in federal prisons. Here are tonight's important new developments

Attorney General Bill Barr is ordering federal prison officials to intensify their efforts to release “vulnerable” inmates at three prison complexes that are struggling to contain major outbreaks of the coronavirus.

Barr said he’s seeking to speed the process of sending selected inmates at prisons in Danbury, Conn., Oakdale, La., and Elkton, Ohio to home confinement because of the danger serious levels of infection at those facilities pose to elderly prisoners and those with pre-existing health conditions.

“We are experiencing significant levels of infection at several of our facilities,” Barr said in the new memo dated Friday and obtained by POLITICO Friday night. “We have to move with dispatch in using home confinement, where appropriate, to move vulnerable inmates out of these institutions.”

Barr also said he was exercising for the first time expanded release authority Congress granted him in the stimulus bill known as the Cares Act that was signed into law by President Donald Trump last Friday.

Under previous law, federal prisoners were only eligible for home confinement after they’d completed 90 percent of their sentences. However, the new legislation allows for earlier releases if the attorney general formally declares an emergency, which he did Friday.

“The CARES Act now authorizes me to expand the cohort of inmates who can be considered for home release upon my finding that emergency conditions are materially affecting the functioning of the Bureau of Prisons,” Barr wrote. “I hereby make that finding and direct that … you give priority in implementing these new standards to the most vulnerable inmates at the most affected facilities.”...

A total of 522 inmates were moved to home confinement following Barr’s directive last week, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

Barr’s public comments supporting early releases for some inmates seemed to be in tension with remarks Trump made Thursday, where he lashed out at state and local officials for endangering the public by releasing convicted criminals and said he might even step in to try to halt such releases....

Barr's new directive stresses that public safety concerns must be taken into account when considering whom to release. "While we have a solemn obligation to protect the people in BOP custody, we also have an obligation to protect the public," the attorney general wrote. "That means we cannot simply release prison populations en masse into the streets. Doing so would pose profound risks to the public from released prisoners engaging in additional criminal activity, potentially including violence or heinous sex offenses."

While Barr emphasized that early releases must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, he said that some precautions normally taken in such situations could be waived in the current crisis, such as GPS monitoring for those being sent home.

A few of many prior related posts:

• When and how will federal authorities start systematically modifying federal sentencing and prison realities in response to COVID-19 outbreak? 
• Who in Trump Administration is involved in "actually looking at" using executive action to release "totally nonviolent prisoners"? 
• With lives at stake, when will we start to see mass clemency and compassionate release?  
• "U.S. attorney general seeks to expand home confinement as coronavirus spreads in prisons" 
• FAMM urges AG Barr to use new pending CARES Act provision to move federal prisoners into home confinement
• Federal inmates and staff all around the nation now testing positive for coronavirus 
• Hundreds of former DOJ officials and federal judges urge Prez Trump to commute sentences and create emergency advisory group to respond to COVID-19 challenges 
• House Judiciary Chair Nadler and Subcommittee Chair Bass send letter to Attorney General Barr urging him to protect the most vulnerable federal prisoners and staff from COVID
• Federal Defenders write to AG Barr to detail concerns with BOP/DOJ response to COVID-19 
• Latest BOP numbers with ever growing number of COVID cases (and deaths) in ever growing number of federal facilities