One year after President Bush defeated Michael Dukakis in an election that sometimes resembled a national referendum on Willie Horton, prison furloughs are alive and well - and keeping a low profile.
In last year's presidential campaign, Bush ridiculed the Massachusetts governor for allowing convicted murderer Horton out on a furlough. Horton raped a woman while free."We don't let murderers out on vacation to terrorize innocent people," Bush said.
True to his word, Bush has asked the federal Bureau of Prisons to further restrict the types of federal prisoners who can qualify for a furlough. But few state prison systems have changed their furlough policies, and prison officials are almost unanimous in their insistence that furloughs make good sense. Many states limit them to less-violent criminals, however.
"It's a non-issue," said Jeffrey Washington, a spokesman for the American Correctional Association. "They worked for years, and they'll continue to work, and the only reason they came up in 1988 was because of the election."
In most states, furloughs are limited to minimum-security inmates nearing the end of their terms. They usually have a twofold purpose: to allow inmates to re-establish ties with their families, and to allow them to hunt for jobs.
Most states also allow inmates out for family emergencies, mainly funerals. But violent felons are typically accompanied by guards, and sometimes have to attend funerals in handcuffs.
Few states have furlough programs similar to the one Massachusetts adopted under a Dukakis predecessor that allowed Horton, who was serving life without parole, to leave prison on a weekend pass in 1986. Horton fled, and didn't resurface until he was arrested for assault and rape the next year in Maryland.
As a result of the Horton case, Dukakis agreed to stop giving furloughs to inmates serving life sentences. But that didn't stop Bush from seizing on the case as a campaign issue.
For months, Bush used the issue to paint Dukakis as soft on crime, and made it the theme of a controversial television commercial that showed inmates parading through a revolving prison gate.
During the campaign, Dukakis pointed out that the Reagan administration had furloughed thousands of federal prisoners. That has continued under Bush.
However, the federal Bureau of Prisons has a policy of generally denying furloughs to anyone convicted of a violent crime. And bureau spokesman Greg Bogdan said Bush has ordered that policy extended to include anyone convicted of drug distribution or illegal firearms charges.
When the new policy goes into effect, possibly by the end of this year, it should have "a significant impact" on the number of federal furloughs, Bogdan said.
Furloughs have remained an issue in a few states, although not necessarily because of the presidential campaign.
In Indiana, for instance, furloughs became a major issue earlier this year when an inmate on furlough was arrested for beating his former wife to death.