More details on the BOP’s new First Step Act Task Force and its challenges
I noted in this post last week that the new Direcotr of the federal Bureau of Prisons has created a new First Step Act Task Force. This new Forbes article by Walter Palvo, headlined “Bureau Of Prisons Task Force Taking Shape, Challenges Remain,” provides some more details on what’s afoot. I recommend the full piece, and here are excerpts:
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) announced the formation of its First Step Act (FSA) Task Force earlier this month to target moving more inmates from federal prisons to community placement, known as prerelease custody. The BOP is also maximizing bed-space in Residential Reentry Centers (halfway houses) for those in most need of these important reentry services. The initiative is part of fully implementing the FSA, which was signed into law by Donald J. Trump in December 2018 during his first term in office….
This task force was formed due to ongoing issues with the Bureau of Prisons’ computer systems, which are struggling to accurately calculate FSA credits. Each month, eligible inmates can participate in programs to earn up to 15 credits, which reduce their sentences. While the maximum reduction is capped at 365 days, inmates serving sentences longer than 48 months can use these credits toward home confinement. Since the implementation of the final rule outlining FSA guidance, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has struggled with accurately calculating the credits. The agency has focused on calculating the monthly credits without considering the projected date for earning all credits. As a result, inmates who could be placed in community halfway houses or home confinement end up staying in prison longer than necessary….
The Task Force is starting with the evaluation of those who are currently in halfway houses that could be transferred to home confinement if the inmates received the full benefit of “stacking” recommended Second Chance Act placement to FSA time credits, consistent with Director Marshall’s guidance last month. The Second Chance Act limits the amount of home confinement to 6 months (or 10%) from the end of the sentence, but the end of the sentence is a moving target for some inmates because they continue to earn FSA credits each month even when they are at the halfway house. The Task Force is manually calculating these dates for inmates in halfway houses, because the BOP’s own computer program currently does not calculate these dates once inmates are released from prisons into the halfway houses….
Once that is done, then the Task Force will turn their efforts to those currently in prison and there it will get complicated. There are inmates who have received dates to transition to halfway houses but case managers previously have not revisited those dates based on the new guidance from BOP Director William Marshall III. The reasons for this are clear, it is more work for case managers who are reluctant to do work they have already done….
As the Task Force continues its work, some challenges persist. Unlike FSA credits, which are earned automatically, Second Chance Act community placements are discretionary and constrained by halfway house capacity. To date, the BOP has provided limited explanation to inmates about why they have not been granted full Second Chance Act placement and have offered little transparency on halfway house availability…. The Task Force is working, but it is a monumental task to overcome years of problems.
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