CCJ updates short reports on the impact of the First Step Act on recidivism and time served

The First Step Act (FSA), which was signed into federal law on December 21, 2018, by then-Prez Donald Trump, celebrates its sixth birthday tomorrow.  Well-timed for a well-justified celebration, the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) have produced two updated data reports on notable FSA implementation issues.  (I flagged in this post and this post from last year CCJ’s very valuable initial data  analyses.)  Here are the titles, links and substantive introduction to these updated pieces both authored by Avinash Bhati:

“First Step Act: An Early Analysis of Recidivism“

Recidivism Rates

Recidivism rates were 55% lower for people released under the FSA.

The BOP defines recidivism as any rearrest or return to federal prison for a new crime or technical violation of supervision, regardless of the outcome of that arrest (whether a person is charged or convicted). According to the BOP’s published data, the recidivism rate for all people released under the FSA is 9.7%.2 While that is considerably lower than the 44.8% recidivism rate3 for all people released from BOP facilities in 2019, people released under the FSA differ in important ways from all persons released from federal prisons; the differences include their assessed risk level and the length of time they have been out of prison. To account for these differences, this analysis estimates recidivism among people released prior to the implementation of the FSA who are similar to people released under the FSA in two key ways: (1) they had a similar risk assessment classification according to BOP’s current risk assessment tool, and (2) they had been released to the community for a similar amount of time.

The analysis shows that people released prior to the FSA who were at similar risk of reoffending and had similar amounts of time in the community had an estimated recidivism rate of 21.5%. This means the recidivism rate for people released under the FSA is roughly 55% lower than similarly situated people released prior to the FSA.4 The analysis also found lower rates of recidivism among people released under the FSA within each of the four risk levels as assessed by BOP’s risk assessment tool.

“Time Sentenced and Time Served: Exploring the Impact of the First Step Act“

People released under the FSA in 2023 served 7.6% less of their imposed prison term than similarly situated people released prior to the FSA.

This analysis estimates the share of the imposed prison term served by the 14,727 people released under the FSA in 2023. It compares that estimate against the share of the imposed prison term (which does not include any required post-release supervision) served by a group of individuals released from BOP prior to the FSA who were convicted of the same primary offense.

People released under the FSA in 2023 are estimated to have served 82.1% of their imposed prison term, on average. An equal group of similarly situated people released from BOP before the FSA was implemented are estimated to have served an average of 89.7% of their imposed prison term.  Therefore, people released under the FSA served 7.6% less time than similarly situated people in the BOP, on average.  To use a hypothetical example, prior to the implementation of the FSA a person with an imposed prison term of 60 months could expect to serve 54 months, on average. After passage of the act, that same person could expect to serve 49 months, on average — five months less.