Asking For Your Prison Of Choice Might Not Get You Where You Want
When you’re being sentenced, most clients and defendants want to be prepared to make their preference known to the judge. They want to spend hours researching different prisons to make the best choice for the next several years in their life.
The bottom line is: it really doesn’t matter. Yes, your attorney can ask the judge to make a recommendation to the Bureau of Prisons, and this may affect your placement. But, there are 121 active federal prisons across the country. The ultimate authority in this choice is the Sentencing Computation Center in Grand Prairie, Texas, and they will choose your place of incarceration based on bed availability, programming needs, and security level.
The judge’s recommendation is just that – a recommendation. The BOP and DSCC are under no obligation to honor that recommendation for any district court judge.
As the First Step Act is written, inmates are supposed to be placed within 500 miles of their homes. Inmates have seen relief when placed outside of this range with habeus corpus filings.
So, the bottom line is this: don’t get your hopes up for any particular federal prison when it’s time to begin your sentence. You’re just setting yourself up for potential disappointment.
If your loved one was placed more than 500 miles from home, call us 10am – 10pm Monday through Saturday, and Sundays 12pm – 7pm at 407-434-0175.