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Comment by HenryBemis | Hacker News Reader

To that point, I was thinking that.. in some countries, even if you are jailed for murder, after some time served, you may request and can be allowed to take some 'leave' (24/48h). Didn't he get the chance to take any such 'leaves' in the US? I honestly don't know US Justice system. Would there be the chance that his crime was so severe to not be allowed to get a leave at all for 30 years?

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I grew up in the US and (unfortunately) this was the first time I'd heard of such a concept. I did some research and "prison furloughs" became a key political issue in the 1988 US presidential election [1]. The federal prison system now only allows non-emergency furloughs for inmates if they are within 2 years of their release/parole date, and who did not commit a violent crime.

Prison furlough programs existed in all 50 states in the 1980s, and "almost 10 percent of state and federal prisoners received a furlough in 1987". [2][3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_Door_(advertisement)

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/12/us/study-says-53000-got-p...

[3] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/05/13/willie-horton-...

"Didn't he get the chance to take any such 'leaves' in the US?"

Probably not. I'm sure some programs exist like that, but it's complicated. In the US, most prisoners are in State, not Federal prisons. Every state, and even every prison, has different programs and rules. Also, in general, US culture views prison as pure punishment and not rehabilitation.

Leaves from prison (felons) are not common in the U.S. Leaves from jail (misdemeanors) are more common (e.g., leave for work during the day, then back to jail after work).

There have been some cases in the US of violent criminals being given furlough and committing further violent crimes while out. This has tended to reduce furlough opportunities here.

From an American perspective that's like giving the lion at the zoo a 24 hour leave to stroll around the city. It's so obviously absurd almost nobody would ever think of it unprompted. Many of the higher security prisons here are brutal dangerous paces. Sentences are long, often lifelong. Surviving a 30 year sentence without committing further crimes in prison that add to your sentence isn't so easy. Anybody with significant time left on their 30 year sentence would be a fool not to flee if given a 24 hour leave. Some of the low security prisons do have some resources focused on rehabilitation. But a lot of the higher security ones where most serious/violent/drug convicts end up are essentially warehouses for storing people who can't legally be executed until they're old and feeble enough to be released "safely" as pensioners/disabled/homeless. There's a reason criminal justice reform is such a big deal. Much of the country wishes we could dispense with the warehousing and just execute them all. While another contingent is very much tired of being thrown into those warehouses to rot based on race/socioeconomic status/the size of their bag of weed or a variety of other relatively harmless infractions.

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