Coalition letter on the use of the PATTERN risk assessment in prioritizing release in response to the COVID-19 pandemic
Document Date:
April 6, 2020
The ACLU joined a coalition letter to Attorney General William P. Barr asking that he rescind his March 26, 2020 memo to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and instead use his broadened authority to immediately lower the federal prison. In addition, the groups asked that BOP not rely on the assessment tool PATTERN to determine home confinement eligibility. Numerous civil rights and legal organizations have previously warned that PATTERN is problematic and likely to perpetuate racial disparity in decision-making.