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March 27, 2023: COMPASSIONATE RELEASE, COVID-19, and BOP BLOG


Fast Facts (Full BOP stats can be found here)


Confirmed active cases at 75 BOP facilities and 5 RRCs

Currently positive-testing inmates: 174 (down from 191) Currently positive-testing staff: 48 (up from 47) Recovered inmates currently in BOP: 45,023 (down 45,031) Recovered staff: 15,219 (unchanged)


Institutions with the largest number of currently positive-testing inmates:

Fort Worth FMC: 10 (unchanged)

Yazoo City Medium FCI: 10: (unchanged)

Oklahoma City FTC; 10


Institutions with the largest number of currently positive-testing staff:

Terminal Island FCI: 6 (unchanged)

Devens FMC: 4 (unchanged)

Grand Prairie: 3 (unchanged)


System-wide testing results: Presently, BOP has 145,307 federal inmates in BOP-managed institutions and 13,127 in community-based facilities. Today's stats: Completed tests: 128,651 (down from 128,655) Positive tests: 55,299 (down from 55,303)


Total vaccine doses administered: 349,251 (up from 349,229)


News Note: The CARES ACT is sunsetting May 9, and with that, the authority it gave the Federal Bureau of Prisons to place prisoners in extended Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (“CARES“) Act, home confinement, which will dissolve 30 days later. Meanwhile, however, the BOP continues to place eligible inmates in early home confinement and in fact, as Walter Pavlo recently wrote in Forbes, the BOP’s Office of Public Affairs, responding to his inquiry, stated, “The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has not made efforts to slow CARES Act home confinement placements as the end of the CARES Act approaches. We have issued no guidance regarding this matter.” In fact, as lisa-legalinfo.com recently observed, the BOP, on March 9, issued a memo stating that inmates who had requested CARES ACT transfers notwithstanding a failure to meet all criteria and whose cases therefore had to be reviewed by a BOP Central Office Home Confinement Committee, would no longer have to return to HCC once they satisfied all necessary criteria but rather could obtain final approval from their institution:

Hard evidence the BOP is pushing CARES Act release arrived last week with the report of an internal BOP memorandum dated March 9 that relaxed prior BOP policy on CARES Act approvals. The BOP has established criteria for CARES Act placement, including serving a minimum portion of one’s sentence, prior disciplinary reports, and history of violence. When a prisoner did not meet all of the conditions, he or she could still be recommended by the institution for home confinement, but the referral had to be approved by a BOP Central Office Home Confinement Committee.


One of the HCC’s practices was to solicit comment from the US Attorney’s Office that had prosecuted the inmate. Pavlo noted that “in many cases, prosecutors did oppose rather than just defer to the BOP, who know best how to house prisoners in its care.”


Up to now, those prisoners denied CARES Act placement by the HCC have been required to go back to Central Office later even when they met all CARES Act criteria. Pavlo said, “This usually led to the same opposition and denial.” But the March 9 memo ends the endless cycle of HCC approval. It says, “Effective with the issuance of this memo, referrals for home confinement placement no longer need to be submitted to the HCC if the inmate now meets all established criteria.” Now, if the inmate meets all BOP criteria, referrals for CARES Act will now be sent directly to the appropriate Residential Reentry Management Office . The RRM “will retain the final authority based on the referral and availability of community resources,” the memo says.


Death Watch (Note: The BOP press website announces BOP COVID-related deaths here.) Today, the BOP announced no new COVID-related deaths, leaving the total number of inmate COVID-related deaths at 314. Eleven of the inmates died while on home confinement. Staff deaths remain at 7.

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