In the wake of the new BOP director’s press releases and internal memorandum directing staff to maximize community-placement opportunities, we continue to receive complaints from people who are past their home detention eligibility date yet sitting in K2-laden residential reentry centers (RRCs). Another situation that is still depressingly common is individuals still in prison who are long past their RRC eligibility date.
Anyone who has closely followed BOP issues over the years became quickly aware that the only news in the BOP director’s press release was that he stated that, “Residential re-entry center bed availability/capacity shall not be a barrier to home confinement when an individual is statutory-eligible and appropriate for such placement.” That’s a big deal because, up until now, that was the main impediment to the application of FSA (First Step Act) pre-release credits. Congress underfunded the First Step Act from the beginning, so contract quotas limited capacity in most parts of the country – leaving people in prison and RRCs longer than intended. We can only hope that the $500 million that was allocated to the cancelled Letcher, KY, prison or a cut of the $5 billion designated for the BOP in the “big beautiful bill” will be diverted to expand the RRC/HC infrastructure, rather than funneling it to the reopening of Alcatraz! That would be true leadership.
Something else that is concerning and requires leadership is an issue related to the calculation of home detention eligibility dates (HDED). I never thought about this before or received previous complaints, but a recent complaint indicates it may be a new issue. The individual provided the corresponding SENTRY and FSA time credit-assessment forms, and, after review, I am certain there is problem issue with the calculation. In this case, the BOP determined the HDED based on the SENTRY-projected FSA release date rather than on the conditional release date on the assessment form. This calculation reduced the home detention allotment from 10% of a person’s sentence (or six months, whichever is less) to approximately 3%. In other words, this individual, who has a 30-month sentence, should have already transferred to home confinement. SENTRY, however, reflects an August 29 HDED due to the failure to apply FSA credits. That’s yet another FSA glitch to add to the previous ones!
A final, related issue to watch is an effort to get the BOP director to realize that the agency is acting outside the scope of law and its own repeated assertions by not allowing FSA credits to continue to accrue and be applied once individuals are transferred to the community. We hope that all the rhetoric and PR turns into action. It’s encouraging that just this week, RRM offices were instructed to clear out the facilities for people who are eligible for home confinement. In addition, RRC case managers were instructed to fill their beds asap. The next few weeks should be an indicator of talk vs action if this is true.
Context and history of home detention eligibility
Prior to the First Step Act, a person’s six-month/10% HDED was calculated based on their full sentence, to allow transfer to home confinement prior to the individual’s projected GCT release date.
Historically, the projected GCT-based release date never changed unless a person lost time for misconduct or won a sentence modification in court. After the FSA went into effect, the GCT release date was renamed the “statutory release date” in the SENTRY database, and the projected actual release date is now calculated based on the FSA (if the person is eligible). However, it doesn’t incorporate the application of FSA time credits after the individual transfers to the community.
This situation could be corrected without a lot of work. What’s required is for the BOP to include a conditional HDED in the FSA time-credit computation. Then, a person could go to home confinement at six months, or 10% prior to the FSA conditional release
I am hoping the BOP is not intentionally depriving people of home confinement time. The courts have given the BOP broad discretion on these issues; let’s not forget that in the past, the BOP held to its guns and insisted on basing the 15% GCT on a person’s net (full term minus good conduct time) instead of gross sentence. And it prevailed at the Supreme Court. The only way it was able to be corrected was with legislation (the FSA).
