In March, 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic ravaged the overcrowded U.S. prison system, the Trump administration passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. One of its many provisions expanded home confinement to allow roughly 13,000 nonviolent offenders to serve their federal sentences at home. The program has helped around 10,000 former inmates re-enter society with (so far) a very low recidivism rate — in addition to protecting them from coronavirus and other hazards of living together so closely with so many other people in prison.
