Category: First Step Act
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Federal Prison Tips Kicks Off Their 2026 Tour in Houston Texas January 14th Tickets and Sponsorships Join Kyle, Nelson and other members of the Federal Prison Tips Team Wednesday January 14, 2026 from 6-8pm at the Spring Hill Suites Houston International Airport for Federal Prison Tips Live. Join Mr. Federal Prison, Kyle Sandler as he…
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There Are Over 130 FSA Programs Available In Federal Prison The First Step Act of 2018 was passed in December 2018, over seven years ago. The BOP is currently working on implementing all of the intracacies of the program. The foundations of the First Step Act (FSA) are an inmates participation in Evidence Based Recidivism…
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It’s Not Up To The BOP Immigrants, undocumented illegals, whatever you want to call them – there seems to be a big problem in the Bureau of Prisons understanding the law and how it applies to this group of people. Our friend Walt Pavlo over at Forbes.com, who writes the Prisonology column, wrote an article…
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Many Believe Judges Are Another Cog In The Machine, But The Government Doesn’t Always Win The judge has the final say in anything you bring to court. Whether that’s a 2241, 2255, compassionate release motion, or any kind of appeal. People who have been burned by jailhouse lawyers will quickly remind you of that. But,…
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We’re Sick of it. They Don’t Care. Today, there are over 75 federal prisons across the country that have essentially flipped the bird at Billy Marshall, Josh Smith, and Rick Stober’s demands to implement the First Step Act (FSA) and Second Chance Act (SCA) correctly. According to memos released by Billy Marshall, those federal prisons…
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Federal Prison System Removes Training Slides From Website On Thursday October 16, 2025 we ran the video above on Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube and Facebook. The somewhat aggressive video highlights several institutions that are still refusing to follow the directives that Federal Prison Director William K. “Billy” Marshall III, issues on June 17, 2025 that directed…
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Every Day Counts. If your inmate or loved one in federal prison is currently incarcerated after being incarcerated in a county jail, and that county time was in service of the federal charges, they are entitled to that time coming off their federal prison sentence. There’s no such thing as “dead time,” or time incarcerated…
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Hint: It’s Rarely 100% For many years, an inmate in federal prison had to do 85% of their sentence. For inmates who behaved, caught no shots or further charges, this applied across the board. Since 2022 and the near-complete implementation of the First Step Act (FSA), that number can be as low as 52% in…
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The First Step Act (FSA) was the most significant prison reform bill in over three decades. Many inmates in federal prison, and their loved ones on the outside, don’t realize exactly how lenient FSA is about allowing inmates in federal prison to earn time off their sentences. It’s not policy – the First Step Act…
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About Compassionate Release 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(1)(A) Compassionate release is codified in law at 18 U.S.C. 3582(c)(1)(A) and described in section 1B1.13 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. It’s a set of rules which provides inmates an avenue to file a motion seeking a change in their sentence from their sentencing judge based on a prescribed…
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Diddy Sentenced To 50 Months In Federal Prison When Will He Be Home? Sean P. Diddy Combs was sentenced to 50 months in Federal Prison today in the Southern District of New York, after being found guilty of two counts of “Transportation to Engage in Prostitution”. He was acquitted of the more serious charges of…
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What Can A 2241 Motion Do? Habeas Corpus is a Latin term that means “you have the body.” This motion allows inmates in federal prison to challenge the legality of their confinement based on the conditions or other elements. If an inmate is being held past their conditional release date as per their First Step…
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What’s The Problem Now? By now, everyone knows that Federal Prison Director Billy Marshall issued a memorandum back in June and posted it on the Federal Bureau of Prisons website. This memo directed case managers in the BOP to stack First Step Act (FSA) and Second Chance Act (SCA) benefits to provide inmates the maximum…
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OIG Issues Report On FSA 500 Mile Rule With Shocking Findings When Congress passed the First Step Act (FSA) in 2018, one key promise was to reduce the harm of incarceration by housing federal inmates as close as practicable to their families. The law directs the Bureau of Prisons to place prisoners within 500 driving…
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Failing The Test Might Not Be So Bad Shortly after you arrive in federal prison, you’re going to take a needs based survey on the TRULINCS computer system. As per the First Step Act (FSA), every new inmate in federal prison now takes this needs based survey that assesses your programming needs for FSA. You…
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First Step Act Introduced The PATTERN Score PATTERN in the Federal Bureau of Prisons stands for the Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Esimated Risks and Needs. It’s used when referring to an inmate’s PATTERN score, which is meant to calculate someone’s risk of recidivism. Recidivism, of course, is the likelihood that an inmate will return to…
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First Step Act Applies To Everyone, But Not All Benefits Can Be Earned There’s a very nuanced point that we need to stress, which some case managers don’t fully understand: everyone in federal prison is eligible for the First Step Act. What we mean is this: The First Step Act covers a wide range of…
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Federal Prison Tips Live First Step Act Workshop Thank you for joining Federal Prison Tips for our Federal Prison Tips Live Free First Step Act Workshop. The First Step Act was the first piece of bipartisan prison reform passed by Congress in over 2 decades when it was signed into law during President Trump’s first…
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Timing RDAP With First Step Act In Mind RDAP is the Residential Drug Abuse Prevention Program that’s offered at several federal prisons across the country. If you’re eligible, completion of the RDAP program can give you a sentence reduction of one year. However, if you have a relatively short sentence, a situation can arise when…
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One of the biggest reasons we hear of inmates not receiving their First Step Act Credit is because of something called FRP refusal. FRP stands for the Financial Responsibility Program. This is the program through which the Bureau of Prisons takes funds out of inmate’s commissary accounts, also known as their trust fund account, to…