by Emily Widra, July 22, 2026

In almost every state, there are laws on the books offering a way out of prison for people who are seriously or terminally ill. Medical parole — also known in some states as compassionate release, medical release, or conditional release for medical reasons — is ostensibly an early release mechanism for extremely ill or incapacitated people who pose little or no threat to public safety. In reality, medical parole sets an extremely high bar for applicants, with a lengthy and confusing application and hearing process. As a result, most applicants remain locked up, with many people dying before their cases are resolved.

We compiled publicly available data from all 47 states with medical parole laws, the District of Columbia, and the federal prison system, in an effort to update data collected and published by FAMM (which they updated in 2021 and 2025 where possible). Ultimately, these data show just how few people benefit from this type of early release, despite the level of need and public support for these laws. Because most states are not statutorily required to publish data regarding medical parole, in many cases we were not able to find data more recent than what FAMM collected from state agency reports and records requests. In most states where we were able to update the data, there has been no increase in the use of medical parole over the past few years, and the number of people granted medical parole each year remains extremely low. For example:

• Florida reported granting Conditional Medical Release to 45 people in 2019 and 35 people in 2020, but granted release to only 18 people in FY2025.
• Massachusetts reported granting Medical Parole to three people in 2019 and 31 people in 2020 (during COVID-19), but only 11 people in FY2024.
• New Jersey reported granting Medical Parole to ten people from 2011 to 2020, but only eight people from FY2021 to FY2025.

With a rapidly aging population, inadequate medical care inside, and too few care facilities that will accept people with felony convictions if they are approved for medical parole, states need to make better use of all early release mechanisms to keep prisons from becoming nursing homes.