As COVID-19 spread through federal prisons, the Justice Department began a novel experiment: 4,500 prisoners were approved for home confinement with GPS ankle monitors. A federal correctional institution in Englewood, CO. As of May 5, there were 2,066 inmates who’d tested positive for COVID-19 in the federal prison system. "I was just recently released from federal prison," Esquivel wrote him last year on July 3, in their very first text exchange, which the couple shared with Insider. Her defense was enough for Dismas, Esquivel said, and the manager told her they wouldn't recommend any punishment. The next morning at Dismas, Esquivel busied herself as she waited for the bureau's ruling.

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