Giving Compass' Take:

• For The First Step Act (First Step), the Department of Justice created a risk assessment tool called PATTERN to support the credit system that helps prisoners gain early release.

• What are the perceived or desired outcomes of this act?  What are donors doing to get involved in criminal justice reform?

• Read more about the First Step Act and the challenges for policymakers. 

The First Step Act (First Step) offers people behind bars the opportunity to earn credits toward early release from Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) institutions.

People who haven’t been convicted of one of a long list of offenses are eligible to earn credits for early release by successfully completing evidence-based educational, employment, or substance use treatment programs or by engaging in other productive activities.

As required by First Step, the Department of Justice (DOJ) developed a new risk assessment tool called PATTERN, described in a recent report (PDF), to support the earned credit system. PATTERN considers several factors to determine whether a currently incarcerated person is at high, medium, low, or minimum risk of reoffending.

These designations affect how much time people can earn and when accrued credits can be redeemed for early release. First Step states that only low- or minimum-risk people are eligible for early release from prison, either into home confinement, a halfway house, or community supervision. The law also allows people to become eligible for early release if approved by the prison warden, regardless of risk level *

About half of the population described in the DOJ report scored at high or medium risk. The report says that nearly everyone at these risk levels who is eligible to accrue credits should be able to move to low or minimum risk. Based on our understanding of the tool and BOP’s programming capacity, it could be challenging for everyone at high and medium risk to sufficiently reduce their risk levels.

Read the full article about First Step Act by Emily Tiry and Julie Samuels at Urban Institute.