Jamie Roth: “The opportunity for change is fading.”

For Raquel Esquival, the onerous requirements of the home confinement program—an ankle monitor, limited range of movement, and mandatory check-ins multiple times a day with a halfway house—were a small price to pay to be able to live with her children again. A 37-year-old mother of three who had been in prison for eleven years, she was released on home confinement in May of 2020. She spent the year after her release reconnecting with her two older children and building a relationship with her youngest, to whom she gave birth while incarcerated and who was taken from her when he was only hours old.

Her release was a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which ripped through the country’s prisons, where rates of chronic illness are higher than among the general population, overcrowding is rampant, and physical distancing is near impossible. In March of 2020, the Department of Justice, using the CARES Act, released 4,500 people deemed particularly vulnerable to the virus—and who had demonstrated good behavior while incarcerated—on home confinement, with a rigorous monitoring program. One of these people was Raquel Esquival, whose story was recently featured in an Insider article by reporter Jamie Roth.

Esquival managed to find a job with supportive and understanding colleagues, and she fell in love with a man named Ricky Gonzalez, who would spend time with her outdoors at her mother’s