American Civil Liberties Union

Under the Second Chance Act of 2007, for two years the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) conducted a pilot program to determine the effectiveness of placing eligible elderly prisoners on home detention (which includes detention in a nursing home or other residential long-term care facility) until the end of their prison terms. In December 2011, the BOP reported to Congress on the results of the pilot (the Elderly and Family Reunification for Certain Non-Violent Offenders Pilot Program). According to the BOP, the pilot achieved no cost-savings and actually imposed an additional $540,631 of costs above what would have been spent to incarcerate these inmates in BOP facilities. Specifically, the BOP compared the daily marginal cost to house an inmate in a minimum-or-low-security facility (estimated at $20.08 and $24.32 per day, respectively) with the regional average per diem paid to the private companies contracted to monitor inmates on home detention, which range from $34.86 to $47.76 per day.