A new year has started. A new congress has been sworn in. A new administration will soon start here in Washington DC on the 20th. My thoughts are for a new hope in prison reform. Plenty of talk about closing down camps and “Low” prisoners to save money that will be cut from the Bureaus budget. In fact, the bureau has already closed down some camps already. Hopefully they will continue to do so and send those adults in custody to home confinment.
As I have read the stats concerning first step act, it seems to be working for those who are eligible for the time credits. The recidivism rate has lowered by nearly 50%. In some cases, the recidivism rate for those who did not get the time credits is even lower. Along with those stats are older adults in custody in prison (Age 55 to 64) that 83% of them are in low or minimum recidivism category. That number jumps to 9410 for AI’ES who are 65 and older, those numbers should tell these in charge something.
The BOP released its cost per inmate for last year, that number was around 44k. I can only imagine what the cost is for older AIC’s who have many medical issues. Since health costs for the bureau hover around 20% of their 14 billion budget logic should dictate to remove these older AIC’s from the system.
The new administration is talking about cutting 2 trillion from the defeat, well here is a good start. Congress needs to reevaluate the penal code, cut back on the extremely lengthy sentences, move certain crimes back to the state level and finally get many non-violent offenders who are 55 and older out. This would save the taxpayers billions of dollars and would be beneficial to many families.
Many of my ideas may be farfetched but stranger things have happened coming out of Washington D.C. All I can do is pray and hope that common sense will somehow prevail. Til next time.

Long, live, prosper!
Adult in custody
P.s. reach out to me if you care to comment

William Isaac is an Army Veteran and a Federal Inmate in Kentucky.  Learn more about him and see pictures on PenPals.Buzz.  Contact him at: William Isaac #14119-025, FMC Lexington, PO Box 14500, Lexington, KY  40512

The post A new hope by William Isaac appeared first on Inmate Blogger.