As federal prison population continues remarkable decline, can anyone predict what might be a new normal?

Another Thursday brings another new check on the federal Bureau of Prisons’ updated general population numbers. In prior posts here and here, I highlighted that, according to BOP’s reporting of the numbers, throughout the month of April the federal prison population was shrinking about 1,000 persons per week.  We are now two weeks into May, and the new numbers at this webpage continue to show an even bigger weekly decline in total number of federal inmates as calculated by BOP: the population dropped from 170,435 (as of April 30) to 169,080 (as of May 7, 2020) to now now a total of 167,803 (as of May 14, 2020).

As I have detailed before, upticks in the number of persons placed on home confinement reported on the BOP’s COVID-19 Update page seemingly account for less than a third of recent reported BOP population decreases.  Thus the data continue to suggest that a reduced inflow of prisoners — due, I presume, to many sentencings and reportings to prisons being delayed — is playing a huge role in the significant population declines in recent months.

As the question in the title of this post is meant to flag, I really have no idea what the new normal for the federal prison population might look like in the wake of the remarkable disruptions caused by the coronoavirus.  Just like the whole nation is likely to be unsure about what kinds of activities are “safe” for quite some time, it may be quite some time before anyone can state with confidence that federal prisons are “safe.”  And, of course, with profound disruptions to federal grand juries and so many other aspects of federal criminal justice administration, it seems likewise impossible to predict just when the huge federal criminal justice machinery that typically sends over 5000 people to federal prisons each month will be operating at full capacity again.  And, as discussed in this prior post, perhaps at least some judges may be more reticent to send some people to prison even after federal officials say their facitlies are “safe” again.

So, dear readers, anyone bold enough to predict what the federal prison population might look like in, say, mid May 2021 or 2025 or 2030?

A few of many prior related posts:

• Noticing the continued decline of the federal prison population (for now) … and a story embedded with intricacies (from Jan 2018)
• Federal prison population, thanks in part to the FIRST STEP Act, hits lowest level in over 15 years (from July 2019)
• Federal prison population, due seemingly to COVID responses, hits another modern low (which is still very high) (from April 2020)
• According to BOP reporting, federal prison population now shrinking about 1,000 persons per week (from April 2020)
• Are federal judges approaching prison sentencing differently now that they see BOP ugliness up close? (from May 2020)
• Federal prison population drops below 170,000 for first time in nearly two decades (from last week)