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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 nonviolent inmates who had served most of their time to be released. After careful vetting, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) released about 24,000 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.
Russell Leaks had more reasons to be worried about the coronavirus than most people.
The 66-year-old Tennessee cook suffers from chronic liver disease, high blood pressure, an irregular heartbeat and the toll of a heart attack. And he was in jail, a place where the virus spreads easily.
Leaks got COVID-19 in late November while awaiting final court action on a parole violation charge. The disease left him so short of breath he could barely talk on the phone with relatives. After receiving what he characterized as minimal medical treatment at the jail, he finally recovered in early January. I felt degraded. I felt like an animal, Leaks said of his health ordeal. I felt like I was put there to die.
Drug Prohibition Leads to Unnecessary Deaths SHARE
I wrote an op‐ed about ending the drug war in the New York Times in 1988. It’s taking the world a long time to come around to my position. Meanwhile, the effects of prohibition persist. I complained in 1988 about 824,000 arrests a year. It was more than 1.6 million in 2018. I noted that the federal government was spending $3.9 billion a year on the drug war, and the figure is far higher now, though estimatesvary.
This week’s newspapers have reminded me of some of the less immediately obvious effects of prohibition. As with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, it’s not enough simply to announce a ban on the possession, use, and/or sale of some substance. Since people want to use the substance that’s why other people want to ban it the law will have to be enforced. That means police, arrests, courts, prisons, and billions of tax dollars. And some amount of violence will be involved, both by the police an
Federal prisoners sent home amid coronavirus pandemic may have to return under Trump-era policy washingtonpost.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from washingtonpost.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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