Giving Compass' Take:
- Walter Pavlo reports on the First Step Act calculator not being fully implemented to allow incarcerated people to reduce their sentences.
- How can donors help hold the Bureau of Prisons accountable to developing an effective tracking system so that incarcerated people who participate in programs can earn time off their sentences?
- Learn more about key issues in criminal justice and how you can help.
- Search our Guide to Good for nonprofits focused on criminal justice in your area.
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Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director Colette Peters has so many challenges facing the agency she leads that even glimmers of good news are touted as major successes. The BOP is suffering from a shortage of 6,500 staff (more than half of that for medical related openings), poor morale, and crumbling infrastructure. So when progress was made on a projected calculator to predict when prisoners would leave prison based on earning First Step Act credits to reduce their sentence by up to a year, it was a center piece to her testimony on Capitol Hill last month. The problem is, the calculator to project when prisoners will leave is simply not being used across the BOP.
Director Peters stated in a video posted on the BOP’s website referencing the First Step Act calculator that “The earn time calculator is up and running. Not only that, but we are now projecting for those in our care and custody, what the earliest potential release dates they could have if they engage properly inside our institutions, and if they continue with programming and treatment. And I think that's really going to help.” This is simply not happening despite the repeated assurances that it is.
Issues Plague the Tracking System of the First Step Act
The First Step Act allows mostly minimum and low security prisoners to earn up to 365 days off of their sentence by participating in programs and productive activities. According to the Federal Register which published the Final Rule, “The FSA provides that ‘‘[a] prisoner shall earn 10 days of time credits for every 30 days of successful participation in evidence-based recidivism reduction programming or productive activities.’’ The BOP could not develop a computer program that complied with this exact provision of the law but instead developed a calculator that runs on the first of the month. If the prisoner did 30 days of programming the previous month then they get their credits to reduce their sentence. If not, then they do not get the credits. This sounds simple, but the result is lost days that result in prisoners, thousands of them, staying longer than the law allows.
Read the full article about the First Step Act calculator by Walter Pavlo at Forbes.