The White House is planning to end COVID-19 emergency declarations on May 11, 2023, marking the end of various programs including one that allowed federal prisoners to serve a portion of their prison term on home confinement.
Starting in early 2020, COVID-19 changed our lives. For those who were prisoners during the pandemic, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was given the authority by Attorney General William Barr to manage prison populations to prevent contagion and to move more vulnerable prisoners to home confinement. The initial priorities were to target prisons where COVID-19 was ravaging prisoners and staff. The program began in April 2022 with mostly minimum security prisoners, who had underlying health conditions, being transferred to serve their prison term on home confinement. That program continues but the end of the emergency declaration means that the program will be coming to end shortly after the May 11th date.