Barr Orders Increase in Home Confinement as Virus Surges

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General William Barr has ordered the Bureau of Prisons to increase the use of home confinement.

In a memo Friday, Barr says the agency must expedite the release of eligible high-risk inmates, beginning with three federal prisons where coronavirus cases have skyrocketed.

They include FCC Oakdale, a prison complex in Louisiana where five inmates have died and more than a dozen others remain hospitalized.

At FCI Elkton in Ohio, three inmates have died.

And 20 inmates have tested positive for coronavirus at FCI Danbury in Connecticut.

Congressional leaders and prison advocates have been pressing the Justice Department for weeks to release at-risk inmates ahead of a potential outbreak.