Word: furlough
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...efforts to portray Gov. Michael S. Dukakis as soft on crime, Bush has relentlessly reiterated the story of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who raped a Maryland woman while on a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison...
...defense of Dukakis, sympathetic pundits point out that the Massachusetts furlough program was instituted under Dukakis' predecessor, Republican Ed King, and that California had an almost identical program under then-Governor Ronald Reagan. They remind voters that as Vice President, Bush never objected to the furlough program for federal prisoners, even when a convicted murderer raped a woman in Arizona while on a weekend furlough...
...these defenses, however, contain one implicit assumption: Dukakis shouldn't defend the Massachusetts program on its own merits, because prison furloughs are a bad thing. Even the liberal Perspective chastised Dukakis' stand, saying "It doesn't take an MBA from Harvard to know that giving furloughs to first-degree murderers is a dumb idea...[T]he governor's lack of political acumen on the furlough issue is troubling...
Although Bush has been able to raise crowds to a frenzy by suggesting that Dukakis coddled criminals, most corrections experts approve of furloughs. In fact, 16 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons have furlough programs...
...Weekend furloughs remind inmates of what life is like "on the outside," providing a powerful incentive for good behavior behind bars. Furloughs give inmates a taste of freedom and make them anxious for release. Thus, they behave well in hope of parole, or at least another furlough. More importantly, furloughs prepare inmates to re-enter society upon their release, thus reducing prison recidivism...