When the pandemic was at its height, the Trump administration allowed around 13,000 non-violent federal prisoners to serve their sentence from home, largely because COVID-19 deaths spiked in prisons as a result of the close quarters and generally unhealthy condition of many prisoners.
Before Trump left office, his Justice Department released a memo demanding that the inmates be returned to serve the rest of their sentences in prison once the pandemic emergency was over.
It didn’t work out that way. The Biden Justice Department issued an order that allowed the prisoners to serve the rest of their sentences in home confinement.
Admittedly, most of the prisoners were convicted of non-violent drug offenses. “It would be a terrible policy to return these people to prison,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “after they have shown that they are able to live in home confinement without violations.”
But Senate Joint Resolution 47, introduced by Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and co-sponsored by 28 Republicans, disagreed. Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton wrote that the proposed veto by Biden “betrays victims and law-enforcement agencies that trusted the federal…
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