Prisoners Released for Covid Safety Sake Brace Against Possible Return

The idea behind prison is to rehabilitate the redeemable criminals and lock away for life the truly evil ones.
When the pandemic began to ravage the nation’s prisons Congress passed a provision in the CARES Act allowing sickly and non-violent inmates who had served most of their time to be released.

After careful vetting, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) released about 24-thousand federal prisoners and allowed them to serve their time under carefully supervised home confinement. In addition, state prisons and jails released thousands more.

The goal was for the convicts to assimilate back into lawful society. It’s important to note: less than 1% of federal inmates violated terms of their release and only three were arrested for new crimes. I couldn’t find state statistics.

Over the last year most of those granted home confinement have reunited with family, gotten jobs and even gone back to college. They took their second chance seriously and began to rebuild their lives in positive ways.

Photo by wikimedia commons - author: Jérémy-Günther-Heinz Jähnick
Home Confinement Comes With Ankle Monitors

But now, as the pandemic appears to be weakening, a kick in the gut for these newly reintegrated citizens. A Department of Justice memo issued during the last week of the Trump administration has come back to haunt them. It mandates that after the pandemic eases, “BOP must plan for an eventuality where it might need to return a significant number of prisoners to correctional facilities.”

Which ones will have to go back to prison? What’s the criteria? Does this seem fair to all those who were issued an ankle monitor and told they were free to rebuild their lives? President Joe Biden has habitually taken steps to undo Trump era mandates but, inexplicably, not in this case. Not yet anyway.

When Gwen Levi, 75, was allowed to go home to Baltimore she thought she’d never again see the inside of a cell. She had served 16 years of a 20-year sentence for conspiracy to sell heroin. While incarcerated she beat lung cancer but developed degenerative joint disease, hypertension and cataracts. She is currently giving back to the community through volunteer work and taking care of her 94-year-old mother.

wikimedia commons photo
Is it Fair to Release Prisoners Then Force Them Back?

“I don’t think society wants me to continue to go back to the past,” she said, “You sent me someplace to change, now you tell me that I gotta keep carrying that baggage with me?” She swears she is a completely different person now and to have to go back “would be devastating.”

RJ Edwards, 37, still has five years left on his 17-year sentence for wire fraud. After his compassionate Covid-19 release he returned to Florida, promptly got a job, an apartment for himself and his mother and enrolled in college to get a degree in computer science.

“They let us go, and we reintegrate, and then it feels like nothing matters,” he said. “All the hard work you put in, it doesn’t matter. We’re just a number to them.” He worries about what will happen to his mother if he is sent back.

pixabay free photo
Send Ex-Cons Back to Prison — Then Who Takes Care of Their Parents?

In Odessa, Texas Jesse Rodriguez, 45, appears to be a man who has learned his lesson. He was sentenced to 15 years on a drug charge but won early release and got to go home to his wife and four children. He quickly found a job and is now a certified technician for a heating and air conditioning company. Rodriguez is also attending Odessa College planning a future that does not include finishing the remaining four years of his sentence.

“You let us out for a reason, because we weren’t a threat to society. You let us join back with our families,” Rodriguez said. “It’s important that I stay in their lives.”

This compassionate release program’s almost non-existent recidivism rate is encouraging and begs a basic question: How many more people who have served long prison terms could safely be integrated back into the community?

The DOJ reports that state and federal prisons now hold more than 1.4 million inmates. On average – and taking court costs into account – each convict costs taxpayers about $40,000 annually, a total of more than $55 billion each and every year.

The U.S. incarcerates more citizens than any other country in the world. Maybe it’s time to seriously consider alternatives like early release for good behavior.

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18 Comments

  1. Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:19 am

    kat.hanson676 writes:

    Thank you for this article Ms. Dimond.
    Change and rehabilitation are possible when people have learned their lesson.
    It certainly seems to me that the people you have written about have learned what they needed to and are determined to become productive citizens of this country.
    We need more articles like this one so that people realize that change is possible and that it is happening.

  2. Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:20 am

    Ellie Stanford writes:

    The reality is that the ‘criminal’ justice system is aptly named – the more people in jail, the more money is to be made. It is a crime in and off itself and must be changed.

    Really?! A 73 year old woman taking care of her 93 year old mother has to go back to jail for ‘conspiracy’ to trade heroin. Sounds trumped up to me. So sad.

    Dig in and do the research. You’ll be shocked. Many innocent people and those’ guilty’ of victimless crimes are being railroaded daily. This is why American has the highest per capita citizens in jail in the world and this is why we have literally countless statutes codes rules and regulations on the books.

    lindsayjamesg writes:

    The key words here are “sickly and nonviolent inmates who had served most of their time,” and to them should be added “and exemplary behavior while in custody.”
    For those people, sure, why not give them a second chance.
    But those who violate their parole should be returned promptly to serve at least whatever sentence they were given originally, with no time off for time in parole status.
    As for the hand-wringing about the costs of incarceration, think about the costs of crime to non-criminals — e.g., lives ruined, lifetime savings lost — and think about how many such tragedies are avoided by keeping evil people separated from the rest of us.

  3. Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:27 am

    Steve.bean writes:

    How do you possibly know the recidivism rate of all those inmates?

    • Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:27 am

      Diane replies to Steve:

      As I wrote in the column, there was congressional testimony that of the thousands who got released for Covid safety only THREE were accused of committing another crime.(I Sure wish we were told what crime they committed – – but that information was not publicly) So, that’s how I know.

      • Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:28 am

        Honey Darling replies to Steve:

        …by keeping track of them. they are all being supervised under house arrest.

  4. Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:28 am

    Michael J writes:

    Sure, release criminals on society then use society as the future victims to lock them up again.

    • Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:29 am

      DD replies to Michael:

      So to follow your thinking: no one convicted of a crime should EVER be allowed out of prison?

  5. Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:29 am

    xhunter4u writes:

    Some of the drug sentences handed out due to Joe Biden’s crime bill are too long if the folks described in the article are an example.

  6. Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:30 am

    Ulster Systems writes:

    If these citizens took this opportunity and made something, then this is a case for leniency and compassion as they have demonstrated and shown meritocracy in action. Commute their sentences and let them make America great.

  7. Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:30 am

    Brandy Thompson writes:

    Good article.

    I hope these rehabilitated people are allowed to live their lives outside the prisons. They should not be sent back.

  8. Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:30 am

    rjpaul94 writes:

    My uncle went to jail in the 40s. He actually learned skills like woodworking and got a decent education. That’s why he called it “college”. How the times have changed

  9. Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 11:30 am

    David Hoffman writes:

    Yes, we need serious prison reform. We need many more programs and incentives for completing these programs, by giving early release.

  10. Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 3:23 pm

    kellyjodi writes:

    Those that lawfully rebuilt their lives, that were NOT violent offenders, I’d agree should remain out, be given parole supervision and continue to rebuild. If they again break the law, their original sentences, plus any additional sentence, for their new offense, will have to be served, in full.

  11. Diane Dimond on May 17, 2021 at 4:59 pm

    Onealapts writes:

    If they are doing what they are supposed to by ankle monitoring just let them continue

  12. Jim Lein on May 18, 2021 at 3:51 pm

    Brilliant column. Looking at data, with common sense and realistic humanity. We are of course all humans, Republicans and Democrats. Prisons are very expensive, more than we can afford. And millions of non-violent persons are or were there and may go back now that the pandemic is winding down.

    Private prisons particularly are a questionable approach: more prisoners means more profits for those owning and managing prisons. Much of our court system has been taken into the picture, producing more and more customers and more and more profits.
    As a nation we are over using prisons, locking up people who could be consumers and workers, benefiting a much wider section of our economy than they are locked up.

  13. Jim on May 18, 2021 at 4:50 pm

    Another prison related issue: state laws where women have been jailed for stillbirths and miscarriages, have given birth in jail cells with no medical assistance, and have been jailed for years, losing custody of their children.

    Sources: “Criminalizing a Constitutional Right,” Madeleine Schwartz, The New York Review of Books, December 3, 2020

    The book: Policing the Womb by Michele Goodwin,, Cambridge University Press (2020)

  14. Diane Dimond on May 19, 2021 at 11:33 am

    ImaDizzykid2 writes:

    Seems like these people who turned their lives around and are doing good should be able to argue that the government releases illegals who they know are rapists and murders so them trying to put the people who were lawfully released and have done good back in jail is not giving “equal treatment under the law”!
    They SHOULD be successful in that argument!

  15. Diane Dimond on May 19, 2021 at 11:33 am

    kat.hanson676 writes:

    Thank you for this article Ms.Dimond.
    Change and rehabilitation are possible when people have learned their lesson.
    It certainly seems to me that the people you have written about have learned what they needed to and are determined to become productive citizens of this country.
    We need more articles like this one so that people realize that change is possible and that it is happening.

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