What CARES Act home confinement was
When COVID-19 swept through congregate prison settings in 2020, Congress gave the BOP a temporary tool. Section 12003(b)(2) of the CARES Act authorized the Director to lengthen the amount of time a person could spend on home confinement beyond the ordinary statutory ceiling in 18 U.S.C. §3624(c)(2) — normally the lesser of six months or ten percent of the sentence. Under that authority, the BOP moved thousands of low-risk people home to serve their sentences under monitoring.
It was, by the government's own later analysis, remarkably successful: the placements had very low rates of new crime, and studies found no increase in recidivism. But the authority was, by design, temporary — it existed only during the declared COVID national emergency and a short window after.
Why it wound down
The COVID national emergency ended, and with it the forward-looking authority to make new CARES Act home confinement placements. The harder question was what happened to people already home whose remaining sentences exceeded the normal limit. After legal back-and-forth, a 2023 Department of Justice rule gave the BOP discretion to let those who had successfully adjusted remain at home rather than be recalled to prison.
Then, in December 2024, the remaining CARES Act home confinement cohort — people who had served substantial time successfully at home — had their sentences commuted in one of the largest single-day clemency actions on record. That step effectively closed the chapter for the people still on CARES Act placement.
Why you can't request it today
Because the underlying authority was tied to the COVID emergency, there is no live CARES Act home confinement program to apply to now. A family researching it today is usually doing so because an older article or forum post referenced it. The honest answer is that CARES Act home confinement is historical: it is not a box a case manager can check for a new placement.
This matters because chasing a closed program wastes time that could go toward the routes that are actually available. The good news is that those routes exist and, for many people, deliver comparable outcomes.
What replaced it — the routes that work now
Three live mechanisms now carry the load. First, First Step Act prerelease custody under 18 U.S.C. §3624(g): people who earn FSA time credits can apply them toward halfway house or home confinement with no statutory cap on the prerelease side. Second, the Second Chance Act under §3624(c): up to twelve months of prerelease custody, historically including up to six months or ten percent on home confinement.
Third, for older or terminally ill people, the Elderly Offender Home Detention Program offers a dedicated home path. And current BOP policy directs that FSA and Second Chance Act authorities be treated as cumulative and stacked to maximize prerelease custody — meaning the two can be combined to move a person home sooner.
The 2025 policy whiplash, briefly
Anyone reading about prerelease custody should know the recent history is turbulent. In spring 2025 the BOP issued a directive sharply limiting halfway house placement, which alarmed many families. Within months that restriction was rescinded in favor of a directive stating that FSA and Second Chance Act authorities are cumulative and "shall" be applied to maximize prerelease custody, and that bed availability shall not be a barrier to home confinement.
The practical lesson is that this is a fast-moving area where policy can shift within a single year. The statutory frameworks — FSA credits, the Second Chance Act, the Elderly Offender program — are stable, but the implementation details around halfway house capacity change, so families should verify the current posture rather than rely on an old article.
What to do if this is your situation
If your loved one was on CARES Act home confinement, their status has almost certainly already been resolved through the wind-down and the 2024 commutations; a current sentence computation will show where things stand. If you were hoping to get someone home and came looking for CARES Act, redirect that energy to the live routes: audit FSA credits, check Second Chance Act timing, and consider Elderly Offender eligibility.
Our home confinement guide covers how placement decisions are actually made today, and the free case assessment can help a family map which current route fits their situation.