The U.S. Justice Department recently released thousands of inmates from federal prisons. The mass release has been publicized as the solution to prison overcrowding and the long punishments given to offenders under mandatory drug sentencing legislation.
The U.S. prison system is about 40 percent over capacity. This early release comes after the U.S. Sentencing Commission worked in 2014 to minimize potential punishments for future drug offenders. The commission estimated that 46,000 federal prisoners might eventually qualify for early release under this program.
The Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police was fortunate to receive information about the federal prisoner release directly from Matt Albence, the assistant director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Enforcement and Removal Operations office.
Albence advised us that during the previous year, the Federal Bureau of Prisons had identified approximately 9,000 individuals who could be eligible for early release and eventually deported from the United States.
As of Oct. 29, 5,480 of these releases and deportations had been approved, with 1,439 prisoners being released on Oct. 30 and 398 more on Nov. 2. Most of the released inmates were housed in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina.
Since these prisoners had been convicted of aggravated felonies, they all had detainers placed on them and, in most cases, had “final orders of removal” accompany their early release documents — meaning, they will be deported. The only exception will be for prisoners with green cards, as they can petition an immigration judge to stay in the U.S.
The six areas most affected by this early release of non-citizens were Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Dallas, El Paso, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
Released U.S. citizens will be transferred to halfway houses, home confinement and drug rehabilitation centers. Hopefully, they will remain on probation and supervised release until they have completed their sentences. Most, if not all, have served the majority of their sentences.
Georgia ranks sixth among all states for the number of federal inmates being released. Many lived in Georgia prior to their sentencings and will be released back to this state.
From a law-enforcement standpoint, several early release factors need to be looked at. Two factors are in favor of the program: It costs approximately $30,000 per year to house a federal drug inmate; and mandatory sentencing guidelines handed out some very harsh sentences for, arguably, relatively minor drug offenses.
On the other hand, one problematic factor for law enforcement is the inmates being released will have criminal records, making it much more difficult for them to obtain employment. If these inmates are unable to find a job, the probability is high they will return to a life of crime.
Another issue is prisoners were not always convicted of all the crimes — or even the most serious crimes — they might have committed. They may have been convicted only of the drug offense because it carried the harsher sentence; or there may have been a plea bargain in which charges other than the drug offense were dropped.
We could be looking at instances where individuals accused of thefts, assaults, negligent homicides and sex-related crimes are once again free, adding to the continuous cycle of crime in our free society.
Frank Rotondo is executive director of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police.
About the Author
