Prison changes weighed to federal program for ailing, aging inmates

WASHINGTON — Months after being sent to prison for a fraud conviction, Iowa businessman Clarence Rice began experiencing severe stomach pains that required extended hospital visits.

“It was such a painful experience — so painful and difficult,” recalled his daughter, Allison Rice, still shaken by the memories of her father’s gaunt and jaundiced face and her final visit with him.

[...] the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the independent panel that sets sentencing policy, is weighing changes to the Bureau of Prisons’ compassionate release program that can free prisoners for “extraordinary and compelling” reasons.

“There are people who are currently in prison who ought to see a reduction in sentence because circumstances have changed that make their continued incarceration inhumane and unnecessary,” said Mary Price, general counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, an advocacy group that is proposing change.

Changing the eligibility requirements dramatically could have unintended consequences, such as forcing the prison system to release fraudster Bernie Madoff or spies Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames, they warn.