Compassionate release

Compassionate release is a process by which inmates in criminal justice systems may be eligible for immediate early release on grounds of “particularly extraordinary or compelling circumstances which could not reasonably have been foreseen by the court at the time of sentencing”. Compassionate release procedures, which are also known as medical release, medical parole, medical furlough and humanitarian parole, can be mandated by the courts or by internal corrections authorities. Unlike parole, compassionate release is not based on a prisoner's behavior or sentencing, but on medical or humanitarian changes in the prisoner's situation, and is found in the US both federally and in the laws of thirty-nine states. With the skyrocketing of prison populations following the mandatory minimum sentencing laws introduced in the 1990s many people have called for the expanded use of compassionate release as a "safety valve" to relieve overcrowded prison systems and reduce pressure on government budgets as well as to ease suffering of inmates and their families. Some states have recently expanded their own forms of compassionate release, as can be seen in New York’s changes to its medical parole laws to include both the terminally ill and chronically ill inmates in the absence of a prognosis of imminent death, although this has not necessarily resulted in more releases.