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 term on December 20, 2021. Since it’s inception the Bureau of Prisons has been plagued with setback after set back in actual implementation resulting in thousands of inmates being held passed their conditional release dates.
Forbes columnist Walt Pavlo recently penned this piece about the First Step Act where he pointed out that under the actual legislation there are several inmates with shorter sentences that would have or should have been eligible to go to home confinement or “community custody” almost right after reporting to prison.
How Could This Be
This is because the actual legislation of the First Step Act (Public Law 115-391) (click here) allows for inmates to earn time credits against their sentence for participating in Evidence Based Recidivism Reducing Programs (EBRR) and other Productive Activities (PA). Inmates are assessed a PATTERN or “Recidivism” score that is either minimum, low, medium or high.
Inmates with medium and high recidivism scores earn time against their sentence and to “prerelease” custody at a rate of 10 days per month. While inmates with minimum or low recidivism scores earn time against their sentence and to “prerelease” custody at a rate of 15 days per month. The legislation calls for this rate of earning however the BOP has independently made it so only the minimum and low recidivism scores can actually redeem those time credits.
Redemption of Earned Time Credits
The first year of time credits goes against the end of the sentence or the “back” of the sentence. In other words that first year of earned time credits is to the door. Every month, an inmate in minimum or low recidivism status sees their date reduce by 15 days per month until they have redeemed a full year (365) days.
The rest of the time credits that they earn (at the same earn rate) is redeemed, or supposed to be redeemed towards “pre-release” custody, or home confinement or halfway house.
In memorandum that was distributed across the BOP to employees, inmates and then to the public, on BOP.gov, current Director William K Marshall III, stated that there was no limit to the amount of FSA time credits that could be assessed towards “prerelease” custody. In this case an inmate is only limited by the length of time they can earn (or capped).
On July 31, 2025, Rick Stover, the Special Assistant to the Director and the head of the FSA Triage team, added a “Statutory Maximum Home Confinement Eligibility Date” to all of the FSA Time Credit Assessment Worksheets. This date takes the entire FSA award and the entire SCA (second chance act) award and “stacks them” to get the new Statutory Maximum Home Confinement Eligibility Date.
When Does It Start
There seems to be some confusion as to when the time credits actually kick in, what date are they using.
The Bureau of Prisons uses an FSA calculator however it’s unclear as to when it actually starts. FSA Scholar Carey Bilyeu, founder of USA First Step has repeatedly asked the BOP for clarification as to when the calculation as to when FSA is supposed to start.
Bilyeu, who was in Federal Prison during some of the same years I was in, poses great questions to the BOP and has gotten a bunch of goblledegook as an answer, which is par for the course.
Check out USA First Step here it’s a great resource.
What Can Be Done?
At Federal Prison Tips our staff of 14 federally justice impacted individuals speaks with people from every federal prison in the country every week. We can tell you that about 45 of the current active federal prisons are assessing inmates correctly, however many of them still aren’t. What can be done.
An inmate can of course do administrative remedies. They can also take a 2241 to court. Consultants and post conviction firms like Federal Prison Tips, Freedom Fighters PC and The Legal Advocation Center have all successfully assisted inmates in preparing 2241 motions. Many of these 2241s have either been granted or resulted in the government directing the BOP to move the inmate to “pre-release custody” per the first step act provisions.
If you’d like our help you can go to our services page for more information of call us at 407-434-0175 from 10am-10pm Monday-Saturday and 12-7 Sundays (Eastern Time)