WASHINGTON—Sentencing experts were not surprised Tuesday at news that former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., now in a federal prison camp in Alabama, will be eligible for placement in a halfway house beginning Sept. 20.
They pointed to his relatively light federal sentence of 30 months in confinement, his completion of a substance-abuse treatment program while incarcerated and the fact that he is a non-violent, white-collar criminal considered unlikely to be a repeat offender.
Jackson, 49, a South Side Democrat, entered a federal prison in North Carolina last Oct. 29 and was transferred April 4 to a minimum-security camp in Montgomery, Ala.
His projected release date is Sept. 20, 2015, a date moved up by just over three months after he completed the treatment program. A good-conduct credit is built into the new date; inmates see 15 percent of their terms cut if they behave.
Jackson will be eligible for home confinement beginning June 22, 2015, the Bureau of Prisons said.
“You’re still in prison when you’re forced to be in a halfway house, but it’s not what we think of as the ‘Gray Bar Hotel,’ ” said Douglas Berman, a Ohio State University law professor and authority on sentencing.
The Bureau of Prisons says inmates are expected to be employed within 15 calendar days of arriving at a halfway house. Alcohol and drugs are forbidden, on or off the premises. Inmates generally pay about 25 percent of their income to cover the cost of their confinement. They must sign out for “approved” activities such as looking for a job, working, counseling, visiting and recreation.
Bureau spokesman Chris Burke emphasized that Jackson’s eligibility dates for a halfway house or home confinement do not guarantee he will be granted them at that time. Burke said six months or less in a halfway house is usually sufficient for inmates to have their “pre-release needs” met.
Jackson also will face three years of supervised release after he completes his term. He won’t be able to vote until his confinement in any penal institution ends, said Ken Menzel, deputy general counsel of the Illinois State Board of Elections, and felons are barred from holding municipal office, such as mayor, in Illinois.
Many other elected offices in the state do not bar felons, said Menzel, who called the determination an “office-by-office thing.”
“Certainly there will be people that won’t be pleased that he’s transitioning (from prison) this quickly,” Berman said, “but the stigma and the social and legal consequences of his conviction will be a stain, not only on his reputation, but on what he can do for the rest of his life.”
Todd Haugh, a visiting assistant professor at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, said defense attorneys are “pretty savvy” about knowing the options for getting a client out of prison early.
Jackson’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
Haugh said life in a halfway house isn’t like a “slumber party” in light of curfews and other rules. He said the facilities are used in part because the “Bureau of Prisons is stretched pretty thin, so they’re sort of always looking for other options than housing prisoners at a detention facility.”
Bed space is limited in Bureau of Prisons-managed halfway houses, which contractors operate. There are five contractors, including the Salvation Army, with such facilities in Illinois, which has 282 beds for men and 64 for women, according to the bureau’s Web site.
In Washington, D.C., there are three facilities with 140 beds for men and 20 for women, the Web site says. Jackson has homes in D.C. and Chicago.
According to Burke, various factors determine whether an inmate moves to a halfway house or home detention. Officials consider whether an inmate has a job, a residence and medical problems as well as his family circumstances, Burke said.
Home confinement may occur for no more than 10 percent of an inmate’s original sentence, but in no case may it exceed six months, Burke said.
The law says eligible inmates may spend up to one year of their time in custody in a halfway house, Burke said.
Haugh said Jackson is unlikely to commit another campaign-finance offense, so “we’re not talking about a career criminal here.”
Berman said the case exemplifies the tension between the government’s bid for “truth in sentencing” and its desire to hasten an inmate’s rehabilitation and re-entry: “The theory is, we want to avoid having him leave the Bureau of Prison gates with a bus ticket, saying, ‘Good luck.’ “
Jackson misused about $750,000 from his campaign war chest, spending the money on personal goods. His wife, Sandi Jackson, a former Chicago alderman, pleaded guilty to a related tax violation. She will begin a 12-month prison term a month after he is released from Bureau of Prisons custody.
Jesse Jackson, the son of civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, served in Congress from 1995 until he resigned in 2012.
Twitter: @KatherineSkiba
