GRANDPARENTS IN THE GULAG.

• Author: Ciaramella, C. J.
• Position: CIVIL LIBERTIES

DEBRA CUPP, 60, stood in front of the U.S. Capitol on a hot day in July holding a handmade sign: "Ron Cupp died waiting on compassionate release, Jan. 3, 2017."

Her husband Ron had complained several times to prison doctors about pain in his gut. Each time, he was sent back to his cell with aspirin. When authorities finally examined him more closely, they discovered he had metastatic colon cancer.

Because he was too weak to make it to the prison visiting room, Debra didn't get to see her husband during the last three months of his life. She found out he'd died because the prison chaplain took it upon himself to call her. The Bureau of Prisons would not officially notify her of her husband's death for another two weeks. By that time, his ashes had already arrived in the mail.

In Washington, Cupp joined other people whose incarcerated loved ones had suffered while waiting for the government to determine if they were eligible for "compassionate release." That policy, which allows elderly and terminally ill inmates to go home ahead of schedule, is supposed to afford people the small mercy of finishing their lives among family and in relative peace. But the petition process, as described by family members, is arbitrary, inscrutable, and cruel.

Since 2014, at least 81 federal inmates died while waiting for the government to review their applications, according to Justice Department records obtained earlier this year by the criminal justice reform advocacy group FAMM...