In this post last Thursday, I reviewed some past and present data on the federal prison populations. In that post, I highlighted that, according to BOP's reporting of the numbers, it appears that through the month of April the federal prison population was shrinking about 1,000 persons per week. Another Thursday means new numbers at this webpage, and toady's official refreshed count of the total number of federal inmates as calculated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons shows a drop of 999 with the population going down from 171,434 on April 23 to 170,435 as we close out April.
Notably, the BOP's COVID-19 Update page last week reported then that "the BOP has placed an additional 1,440 inmates on home confinement." This week, as of mid-day April 30, BOP is reporting that it has placed "1,805 inmates on home confinement." This reported official increase of 365 more inmates placed on home confinement would seemingly account for only a little more than a third of this week's overall population decrease. This reinforces my sense that a reduced inflow of prisoners (due I would guess to many sentencings and reportings to prisonsbeing delayed) accounts for the lion's share of the prison population decline over the last month.
Meanwhile, as the BOP is starting to roll out more COVID testing and yet still struggling with policy and operational changes, there seems lately to be even more press covering the messiness in various ways:
From the Associated Press, "Over 70% of tested inmates in federal prisons have COVID-19"
From the Chicago Tribune, "Wild swing in coronavirus numbers reported at Chicago’s federal jail goes unexplained, leaves lawyers skeptical"
From the Santa Barbara Independent, "Lompoc Prison’s COVID-19 Crisis Threatens to Pop: Rep. Salud Carbajal Warns of Potential 'Disaster That’s Unfathomable'"
From USA Today, "More than 1,500 federal prisoners now have COVID-19 as officials expand testing"
From the Wall Street Journal, "More Than 70% of Inmates Tested in Federal Prisons Have Coronavirus: Prisons officials expect the number of positive results to climb as testing is expanded"
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