Court Approves Settlement; BOP to Rapidly Process Lompoc Inmates Under Expanded CARES Act Home Confinement Rules
Lompoc, California (DAS) – In May 2020, during the peak of the original COVID-19 national pandemic, the federal prison at Lompoc, California was 130% overcrowded. It quickly became one of the worst hit federal prisons in the country with a massive COVID-19 outbreak. In Torres v. Milusnic, a group of Lompoc inmates brought a class-action lawsuit alleging that the overcrowded prison made it impossible for inmates to employ social distancing or take other precautions against spreading COVID-19. The lawsuit also alleged that the BOP was not using several tools at its disposal to improve the situation, including CARES Act home confinement authority.
CARES ACT HOME CONFINEMENT
In March 2020, Congress added a provision to the COVID-19 relief bill (known as the CARES Act) that gave the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) expanded authority to place low-risk federal prison inmates in home confinement. The reason was to help combat prison overcrowding during the COVID-19 pandemic. President Trump agreed, signing the CARES Act on March 27, 2020.
With this new authority, thousands of low-risk, non-violent federal inmates have been allowed to complete their prison sentence, at home. Recent data shows this move to home confinement was remarkably successful. It helped reduce prison populations, it reduced unnecessary incarceration, and was much less expensive. More than this, the successful re-entry of federal prisoners to their communities without re-offending has been remarkable.
Since that 2020 authorization by Congress, more than 11,000 low-risk prisoners have been transferred under “CARES Act” home confinement policy. These inmates were allowed to serve the remaining portion of their federal prison sentences on restricted conditions, at home.
One of the guiding criteria used to decide which inmates would be transferred under this expanded home confinement authority was the newly available PATTERN Score (also made possible when Congress passed, and President Trump signed, the First Step Act in December 2019). The PATTERN tool predicts individual inmate “recidivism risk” or likelihood of an inmate re-offending after being released from prison.
Remarkably, the statistical data now reveals that of the 11,000+ inmates transferred to finish their sentences at home, only 17 committed new crimes. By comparison to normally expected recidivism rates (often between 25% and 70%), the CARES Act home confinement program has proved unimaginably successful. Yet, prison wardens across the country have been reluctant and limited in exercising CARES Act authority.
THE LOMPOC LAWSUIT & CARES ACT HOME CONFINEMENT
The 2020 Lompoc lawsuit was effective almost immediately, with a federal judge granting preliminary injunctive relief that, among other things, required the warden at Lompoc and the BOP generally, to utilize CARES Act home confinement as a method of managing the COVID-19 risk for individual inmates and the prison at large.
Earlier this year, the inmates and the BOP entered into a settlement agreement, the federal court has approved the settlement, and the terms of the settlement are included in a binding federal court order. These developments at the Lompoc, California facility are quite interesting. The COVID-19 pandemic has become something less of a crisis than it was back in 2020, but the BOP has agreed to expand its CARES Act rules for home confinement at Lompoc. This agreement is now binding, as of October 2022, when the federal court settlement went into effect. Part of the agreement requires that the BOP more broadly implement CARES Act home confinement transfers – without, for example, regard to the percentage of time served on an inmate’s sentence.
THIS RAISES THE QUESTION, WHY ONLY LOMPOC?
When CARES Act home confinement was first contemplated by then-United States Attorney General William Barr, he ordered its broad and expedited use. However, shortly after Barr issued the policy, the BOP changed course. Under then-Director Carvajal, the BOP quietly devised and implemented a more detailed criteria, limiting eligible for CARE Act home confinement by applying additional factors unrelated to personal characteristics of the inmate, or the predicted recidivism risk. One added factor was the requirement that an inmate must have served 50% of his or her sentence (or 25% if less than 18 months remained).
While the BOP publicly claims that it is still relying on Barr’s 2020 policy, its internal memorandums show that a more strict, 9 factor criteria is used, which hinges primarily on the length of an inmate’s sentences, rather than the health and recidivism data of the original policy.
LOMPOC SETTLEMENT TERMS
Fast forward to 2022, on June 27, 2022, U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall formally approved the settlement agreement in the Lompoc case. This was more than two years after the first five inmates filed the class-action suit.
COVID-19 is still active in federal prisons. Hundreds of inmates have died and continue to die from COVID-19 infections contracted in prison. But wardens across the country seem to feel the situation less pressing, often failing to use CARES Act policy at all, now that public and Congressional attention related to COVD-19 has subsided.
This makes the BOP’s recent agreement in the Lompoc lawsuit, worth examining. In the settlement, which just became legally effective at the end of October 2022, the BOP agreed to broadly apply CARES Act home confinement to current and future Lompoc inmates without the BOP’s more restrictive limitations. This means that in addition to prioritizing low-risk inmates with underlying health conditions such as serious heart conditions, Type 2 diabetes, asthma, obesity, HIV, and other immuno-compromised conditions; a broader cross-section of inmates at the Lompoc facility would be considered than is required by current nationwide BOP policy. The Court’s order authorizing the settlement specifically requires the BOP and Lompoc administrators to, among other things:
“Promptly review and transfer eligible [inmates] to home confinement…without denying anyone based solely on the amount of time served or the nature of a prior offense.”
This should be good news for an institution looking for successes after years of controversy and failures. CARES Act home confinement is a bright spot with the potential to help modernize the treatment of low-risk, non-violent federal prisoners. Yet, no word yet has come from the BOP’s new director regarding the possible broader use of the CARES Act authority at other facilities.
As far as the Lompoc settlement, the Court’s order will only remain in effect until either Dec. 17, 2022, the federal coronavirus emergencies are ended or when the Attorney General decides that emergency conditions related to COVID-19 “no longer materially affect” BOP functions — whichever is sooner.
Current statistics show that the CARES Act home confinement program, aided by the use of the First Step Act’s PATTERN tool, has been a tremendously successful step-forward for federal prison re-entry. Nothing in the BOP’s history compares to it.
With tools like the CARES Act and the First Step Act’s PATTERN score as a guide, re-entry has never been more successful. The BOP’s approach to resolving the Lompoc lawsuit opens the question as to why the BOP, under the new direction of Director Colette S. Peters, hasn’t yet taken the same broad approach across all federal prisons.
If you know of someone in the BOP who needs help with CARES Act or First Step Act issues; whether they are in the Administrative Remedy process stage, are looking to file with the court in a pro se petition, etc., you can tell them about this update. We are willing to discuss whether there is anything we can do to help.
Contact D.A.S. for help.
Phone: 800-489-8146
Email: info@defendantaidsociety.org