It has been five years since President Donald Trump signed the sweeping criminal justice regulation called the First Step Act (FSA). FSA allowed many federal inmates to earn credits to reduce their sentence or to transition to home confinement for a part of their sentence by participating in meaningful programming and activities.
FSA has been plagued by missteps by the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). First the agency was caught off guard in January 2022 when the final rule on FSA was published in the Federal Register. It was only then that the BOP realized Congress’ intent of reducing the prison populations by pushing many low and minimum inmates to have get out of prison sooner and/or to put them in the community for a greater part of their sentence.
Prior to FSA, most federal inmates just earned 54 days per year of Good Conduct Time off their imposed sentence. However, FSA can cut a prison term by up to one year for many eligible inmates and can also result in many additional months of home confinement. During 2022, as the BOP scrambled to implement the program, many inmates did not receive any credits, resulting in thousands spending more time in prison than necessary. Now, just as the BOP has fixed its calculation algorithm to correct those past issues, it is now shorting inmates on time in the community and stating it is because of limits in capacity at its Reentry Centers or halfway houses.