ACLU releases new poll showing broad support for clemency for home confinement cohort

This new press release reports that "the American Civil Liberties Union released a poll today showing broad bipartisan support for President Joe Biden to issue clemency to those who were selected to be transferred home under the CARES Act."  Here are more details from the press release:

During the pandemic, thousands of people have been released from prison to finish their sentences on home confinement, many of whom are elderly or especially vulnerable to COVID-19.  Now, thousands are at risk of being sent back to prison when the pandemic recedes if President Biden does not take action.  Sending all of these people back to federal prison would be the single largest act of incarceration in U.S. history....

Among the poll’s findings:

• 63 percent of voters nationally support clemency for those who are serving their sentences at home due to COVID-19;
• Among voters in swing House districts, 70 percent of voters support allowing those who were transferred home to serve the reminder of their sentences at home to help prevent the spread of COVID-19;
• 68 percent of voters nationwide and 58 percent of voters in swing House districts agree that it’s not fair to return people to prison after they have been successfully released to their families and communities and re-entered society;
• 53 percent of Republican voters agree that it’s unfair to release people back to their families and communities and then return them to prison;
• 64 percent of voters nationwide — including 84 percent of Democrats — support using the president’s power of clemency to end or shorten prison sentences of people deemed safe for release; and
• While only 38 percent of independents approve of Biden’s job as president, a majority of them (57 percent) say they would support the president using clemency.

I am a bit surprised that these numbers are not stronger, though it is unclear from the ACLU "fact sheet" just how the poll questions were presented and how much the average poll participant fully knows or understands about all those in the "CARES home confinement cohort."   In fact, I still have not seen a lot of detailed data on just how many persons are still serving time on home confinement whose sentences goes beyond 2022 and would be at risk of a return to prison if the pandemic (miraculously) ends in the next few months.  I have also not seen much information about the sentences still to serve, the offenses of conviction and other details regarding exactly who would benefit from mass clemency om behalf of the home confinement cohort.  Though these details likely would not undermine my general support for bringing relief to this low-risk group, they might shape my view of whether everyone ought to have their sentences commuted to time served or if some perhaps ought to be receive some other form of relief in some cases.

Given that we are now into the final holiday weeks of the year, I am now getting close to giving up any hope that  that Prez Biden will grant even a single clemency in 2021.  (Of course, holiday season clemencies late into December are not uncommon.  Four years ago today, for example, Prez Trump granted a commutation to Sholom Rubashkin.)  And, of course, the omicron surge of the COVID pandemic now suggests that we are clearly many months away, and perhaps even years away, from a return to normal BOP operations when the CARES home confinement cohort would be at risk of a return to prison.  All these realities lead me to think we will be discussing these issues (and doing more polling?) well into 2022.

Some of many prior related posts:

• Notable OLC opinion on "Home Confinement of Federal Prisoners After the COVID-19 Emergency" 
• Spotlighting effectiveness of home confinement under CARES Act and concerns about OLC memo disruption
• Effective review of (just some) issues surrounding home confinement for the Biden Justice Department
• Notably advocacy for Prez Biden to use his clemency power to ensure those released into home confinement need not return to prison 
• Why aren't there much stronger calls for CONGRESS to fix post-pandemic home confinement problems?
• Hoping grandmothers and others on home confinement get compassionate consideration
• Home confinement cohort at risk of being returned to federal prison garnering still more attention (but still little action) 
• Advocacy groups argue to DOJ that OLC home confinement memo is "incorrect" and should be rescinded 
• Senators Durbin and Booker write to Prez Biden requesting "immediate action" to prevent home confinement cohort from facing return to prison 
• Prez Biden reportedly considering, for home confinement cohort, clemency only for "nonviolent drug offenders with less than four years" left on sentence 
• Action beginning on Biden clemency plan for some drug offenders in CARES home confinement cohort 
• Law enforcement and prosecutor groups urge Prez Biden to commute sentence of all in home confinement cohort