What Is The RRM Responsible For In My Situation?
If you have an inmate in federal prison who is First Step Act or Second Chance Act Eligible, you need to read this.
The RRM in the federal prison system, or Bureau of Prisons, is the regional reentry manager. That person is tasked with placing inmates from prison into home confinement or halfway house.
Truth #1: In many cases, the RRM is the scapegoat for a lazy, incompetent, or intimidated case manager that doesn’t want to do their job.
Yes, there are good case managers in federal prison. But, a lot of case managers are lazy and just don’t want to make the call to the RRM when an inmate’s recalculated days will put them into a Halfway House sooner.
Rather than make the call, they just say that the RRM said no or that there is no bed space in the halfway house. That’s why a loved one will often find they can call the RRM or halfway house and find that, contrary to what the case manager said, there’s plenty of bed space.
Truth #2: There are sometimes confounding factors to actually cause bed space restrictions.
Taking an example from a halfway house in South Florida right now – one that actually does a good job.
This halfway house holds 70 federal inmates. But, there’s a construction project going on, so there’s no longer 70 beds available – they’re down to about 30. Of those, 20 are occupied, and 10 are already assigned an inmate who will be using them within the next month or so.
There’s a lot that goes into the decision in the background when placing somebody in halfway house or home confinement. RRMs are actually not supposed to tell your family members anything when they call – so consider it a blessing if they’re open and honest about their situation. They’re going above and beyond in these instances.