The First Step Act

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

The First Step Act of 2018 is a federal statute, signed on 21 December 2018 as Public Law 115-391, that changed two separate things: how the Bureau of Prisons runs a federal sentence, and how federal courts impose one. Eight years on, the fights are no longer about what the Act says. They are about how the Bureau applies it, who the statute’s exclusion lists actually reach, and which of the sentencing changes a court can still use.

This page is written for the person trying to work out where they, or someone they love, actually stand — and for the lawyer who needs the statutory text and the current case law in one place. It states the rule, cites the provision, and stops short of the one thing no honest page can do: tell you what will happen in your case.

What Is the First Step Act of 2018?

The First Step Act of 2018 is a federal law that created a system of earned time credits for people in federal prison, required the Department of Justice to build a risk and needs assessment system, expanded prerelease custody, and made four discrete changes to federal sentencing law. It applies only to the federal system. It has no effect on anyone serving a state sentence.

The Act runs to six titles. Public Law 115-391 is organized as Title I (Recidivism Reduction), Title II (Bureau of Prisons Secure Firearms Storage), Title III (Restraints on Pregnant Prisoners Prohibited), Title IV (Sentencing Reform), Title V (Second Chance Act of 2007 Reauthorization), and Title VI (Miscellaneous Criminal Justice).

That structure matters more than it looks. The prison-side reforms in Titles I and VI operate on people already serving sentences and are administered by the Bureau of Prisons. The sentencing-side reforms in Title IV operate in court, at sentencing or resentencing, and are administered by judges. They have different eligibility rules, different decision-makers, and different retroactivity rules. Conflating them is the single most common error in what gets written about this statute.

Four things the Act did, stated precisely:

• It created earned time credits. A prisoner who is not on the statutory exclusion list and who successfully completes qualifying programming earns 10 days of time credits for every 30 days of successful participation, with an additional 5 days per 30 for a prisoner the Bureau has assessed at minimum or low risk who has not increased that risk over two consecutive assessments.
• It changed how good conduct time is calculated. The Bureau now computes up to 54 days for each year of the sentence imposed by the court, rather than for each year served. That is a different statute from earned time credits and it is explained in its own section below.
• It changed four sentencing rules. It reduced the recidivist drug mandatory minimums, broadened the safety valve, narrowed the circumstances in which the 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) 25-year penalty applies, and made the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive for certain crack cocaine offenses.
• It let defendants file their own compassionate release motions. Before December 2018 only the Director of the Bureau of Prisons could ask a court to reduce a sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). That single change reshaped federal post-conviction practice.

The Act also required the Attorney General to build and publicly release a risk and needs assessment system, directed the Bureau to place people within 500 driving miles of their primary residence where practicable, prohibited the use of restraints on pregnant and postpartum prisoners, banned room confinement of juveniles except as a temporary response to an immediate risk of physical harm, and required the Bureau to supply tampons and sanitary napkins free of charge.

A note on vocabulary, because the Bureau and the statute do not always use the same words. The statute says “time credits.” The Bureau’s own paperwork says “FSA Time Credits” and abbreviates them “FTCs.” The Bureau’s staff and the case managers on a unit will say “FSA credits.” These are the same thing. They are not “good time,” they are not “good conduct time,” and they are not “gain time.” Getting the words right is the first step to getting a straight answer out of a case manager.

Key Provisions and Titles of the First Step Act

The First Step Act is organized into six titles, each doing a different job. Below is what each title actually contains, with the codified provision where one exists.

Title I: Recidivism Reduction

Title I is the heart of the Act. Section 101 added a new subchapter D to chapter 229 of title 18 — sections 3631 through 3635 — and directed the Attorney General to develop a risk and needs assessment system within 210 days of enactment. That system is used to classify each prisoner as minimum, low, medium or high risk for recidivism; to determine what programming is appropriate; to reassess risk periodically; and to determine readiness for transfer to prerelease custody or supervised release.

Title I also created the time credits themselves, at 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4), and the mechanism for applying them, at 18 U.S.C. § 3624(g). Section 102 amended § 3624 and added subsection (h) to 18 U.S.C. § 3621, which sets the implementation timetable. Section 107 created the Independent Review Committee.

Title II: Bureau of Prisons Secure Firearms Storage

Section 202 permits correctional officers to store firearms securely outside the secure perimeter of a federal facility, and to carry concealed firearms on Bureau grounds outside the secure perimeter. This is a staff-safety provision and has no effect on prisoners.

Title III: Restraints on Pregnant Prisoners Prohibited

Section 301 added 18 U.S.C. § 4322, which provides that “beginning on the date on which pregnancy is confirmed by a healthcare professional, and ending at the conclusion of postpartum recovery, a prisoner in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons, or in the custody of the United States Marshals Service pursuant to section 4086, shall not be placed in restraints.” The section carries narrow exceptions and requires the Bureau and the Marshals Service each to develop training guidelines on the use of restraints during pregnancy, labor, and postpartum recovery.

A separate provision, 18 U.S.C. § 4051, governs the treatment of primary caretaker parents and bars placing a pregnant prisoner or one in post-partum recovery in a segregated housing unit. It defines “post-partum recovery” as “the first 12-week period of post-partum recovery after giving birth.”

Title IV: Sentencing Reform

Four sections, each doing one thing:

• Section 401 reduced the recidivist enhancements in 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1) and narrowed their trigger.
• Section 402 broadened the safety valve at 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f).
• Section 403 amended 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(C) so that the 25-year penalty applies only where a prior § 924(c) conviction “has become final.”
• Section 404 made sections 2 and 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive for offenses committed before 3 August 2010.

Each has its own applicability rule. They are set out in full in the sentencing section below.

Title V: Second Chance Act of 2007 Reauthorization

Title V reauthorised and amended the Second Chance Act grant programs that fund state, local and tribal reentry work, along with federal reentry improvements, interagency coordination, and evaluation and audit requirements. It is the funding title. It does not create any individual entitlement, and it is a common source of confusion because “Second Chance Act” is also the shorthand for the separate 2007 statute that set the 12-month residential reentry center ceiling.

Title VI: Miscellaneous Criminal Justice

Title VI is where several of the provisions people most often ask about actually live:

• Section 601 rewrote 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) to require the Bureau to “place the prisoner in a facility as close as practicable to the prisoner’s primary residence, and to the extent practicable, in a facility within 500 driving miles of that residence” — subject to bed availability, security designation, programmatic needs, medical and mental health needs, faith-based requests, the sentencing court’s recommendations, and the Bureau’s security concerns.
• Section 603 amended § 3582(c)(1)(A) to permit defendants to file compassionate release motions, and expanded the elderly and terminally ill home detention pilot at 34 U.S.C. § 60541(g).
• Section 611 requires the Director to “make the healthcare products described in subsection (c) available to prisoners for free, in a quantity that is appropriate to the healthcare needs of each prisoner,” and defines those products as “tampons and sanitary napkins.”
• Section 613 prohibits “the use of room confinement at a juvenile facility for discipline, punishment, retaliation, or any reason other than as a temporary response to a covered juvenile’s behavior that poses a serious and immediate risk of physical harm to any individual, including the covered juvenile.”
• Other sections address identification documents before release, opioid and heroin abuse treatment, de-escalation training, and expanded data collection.

What the First Step Act Looks Like in 2026, Eight Years On

The statute has not changed much since 2018. What has changed is everything around it: the Bureau’s implementing regulations, its Program Statement, and three Supreme Court decisions that redraw who gets the benefit of the sentencing reforms. A page that describes the 2018 bill without describing the 2026 machinery is describing a law that no longer operates the way it reads.

Here is what has actually moved, and what still governs.

The regulations. The Bureau’s final rule implementing FSA Time Credits took effect on 19 January 2022 and is codified at 28 C.F.R. §§ 523.40–523.44. A separate final rule conforming the good conduct time regulations to the statute was published at 87 FR 7938 and took effect 14 March 2022. Those regulations, not the statute alone, are what a case manager applies.

The Program Statement. Bureau Program Statement 5410.01, First Step Act of 2018 — Time Credits: Procedures for Implementation of 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4), dated 18 November 2022 and amended by Change Notice CN-2 on 10 March 2023, is the operative Bureau instruction. It is agency policy, not law — the statute and the regulation bind; the Program Statement tells staff how to apply them. Our own explainer of that policy is at First Step Act time credits, and the companion programming and incentives policy is at First Step Act assessments, programming and incentives.

Three Supreme Court decisions that changed the sentencing side.

• Pulsifer v. United States, 601 U.S. 124 (2024) construed the broadened safety valve against defendants. The Court held that a defendant “is eligible for safety-valve relief under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1) only if he satisfies each of the provision’s three conditions.” Any one of the three criminal-history disqualifiers is enough to close the door.
• Hewitt v. United States, 606 U.S. 419 (2025) construed the § 924(c) fix in defendants’ favor. The Court held that under § 403(b) of the Act a sentence “has been imposed” only “if the sentence is extant — i.e., has not been vacated,” so “the Act’s more lenient penalties apply to defendants whose previous § 924(c) sentences have been vacated and who need to be resentenced following the Act’s enactment.”
• Rutherford v. United States, Nos. 24-820 and 24-860 (U.S. May 28, 2026) closed a door that had been open since 2023. The Court held that “when Congress declines to make a sentencing amendment retroactive — as with the change to § 924(c) — the resulting sentencing disparity cannot serve as an ‘extraordinary and compelling’ reason that warrants a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i),” and that the Sentencing Commission’s contrary policy statement “is invalid” to that extent. We analyze the decision and what survives it at Rutherford and the Supreme Court’s 2026 compassionate release ruling and at unusually long sentences under §1B1.13(b)(6).

The CARES Act home confinement authority has lapsed. Section 12003(b)(2) of the CARES Act let the Director of the Bureau exceed the ordinary home confinement time limits in § 3624(c)(2), but only “during the covered emergency period.” Under 28 C.F.R. § 0.96(u), that lengthening authority ran “during the ‘covered emergency period’ as defined by the CARES Act,” and after its expiration the surviving delegation is narrower: the Director may permit “any prisoner placed in home confinement under the CARES Act who is not yet otherwise eligible for home confinement under separate statutory authority to remain in home confinement under the CARES Act for the remainder of the prisoner’s sentence.” The regulation adds that this “concerns only inmates placed in home confinement under the CARES Act. It has no effect on any other inmate, including those placed in home confinement under separate statutory authorities.” In plain terms: CARES Act home confinement is a closed intake. Anyone asking about home confinement today is asking about § 3624(c), § 3624(g), or the elderly offender pilot. See CARES Act home confinement and home confinement.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The most common thing we correct in a first conversation is not a legal misunderstanding. It is a document problem. Somebody has read an article written in 2019, or a printout that circulated on a compound three years ago, and is working from a version of the rules that has since been superseded twice. The fix is always the same: get the current FSA Time Credit Assessment out of the file, get the sentence computation sheet, and read them against the current regulation rather than against what someone remembers.

Good Conduct Time and First Step Act Time Credits Are Not the Same Thing

Good conduct time and First Step Act earned time credits are two different credits, created by two different statutes, earned in two different ways, and applied to two different things. Almost every non-specialist source treats them as one. They are not, and the difference decides real cases.

	Good conduct time	First Step Act earned time credits
Statutory source	18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1)	Earned under 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4); applied under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(g)
Regulation	28 C.F.R. part 523, subpart B (final rule 87 FR 7938, eff. 14 Mar. 2022)	28 C.F.R. §§ 523.40–523.44 (final rule eff. 19 Jan. 2022)
What it is earned for	“Exemplary compliance with institutional disciplinary regulations” during the year	“Successful participation in evidence-based recidivism reduction programming or productive activities”
Rate	Up to 54 days for each year of the sentence imposed by the court	10 days per 30 days of successful participation, plus 5 more days per 30 days where the Bureau assesses minimum or low risk and the person has not increased that risk over two consecutive assessments — a maximum of 15 days per 30
What it reduces	The term of imprisonment itself	Nothing. Credits are “applied toward time in prerelease custody or supervised release” — they move the release point, they do not shorten the sentence
Statutory exclusions	A term of one year or less; a term “for the duration of the prisoner’s life”	Any conviction under one of the 68 provisions enumerated in § 3632(d)(4)(D); plus, for application only, anyone “subject to a final order of removal under any provision of the immigration laws” (§ 3632(d)(4)(E))
Does the PATTERN risk score matter?	No. Good conduct time turns on discipline, not on risk level	Yes, twice. Minimum or low risk over two consecutive assessments is required for the extra 5 days; and § 3624(g)(1)(D) makes minimum or low risk (or a warden-approved petition) a condition of transfer
Can it be lost?	Yes, through the disciplinary process	Yes. Only earned credits can be lost, through the discipline process in 28 C.F.R. part 541, and lost credits may be restored after clear conduct through two consecutive risk and needs assessments
Is there a cap on how much can be used?	No separate cap	Credits toward early transfer to supervised release are capped at 12 months (§ 3624(g)(3)); credits toward prerelease custody are not capped by the § 3624(b) and (c) limits (§ 3624(g)(10))
Who computes it	The Bureau of Prisons	The Bureau of Prisons, by monthly auto-calculation

Two consequences follow from that table, and both get missed.

First, the “47 days a year” arithmetic is dead law. Before the First Step Act, § 3624(b)(1) read that a prisoner “may receive credit toward the service of the prisoner’s sentence, beyond the time served, of up to 54 days at the end of each year of the prisoner’s term of imprisonment, beginning at the end of the first year of the term.” Computing 54 days against time served rather than against the sentence imposed produced roughly 47 days per year, and the familiar claim that a federal prisoner “serves about 87 percent.” The current text computes the credit against “each year of the prisoner’s sentence imposed by the court.” Any article, calculator or printout that still says 47 days, or 85 percent, or 87 percent, is describing a formula the First Step Act replaced (the change took effect on 19 July 2019, when the Attorney General released the risk and needs assessment system). Our detailed treatment is at good conduct time and the Bureau policy explainer is at good conduct time policy.

Second, good conduct time is still not automatic. The statute says a prisoner “may receive” the credit, “subject to determination by the Bureau of Prisons that, during that year, the prisoner has displayed exemplary compliance with institutional disciplinary regulations.” One further mechanical detail is worth knowing: credit for the last year of a term is credited on the first day of the last year of the term.

First Step Act Earned Time Credits: How They Work

Earned time credits are credits a federal prisoner accrues by successfully participating in programming the Bureau has recommended for that person, at a rate of 10 or 15 days for every 30 days of participation. They are applied toward time in prerelease custody or toward an earlier start to supervised release — not toward shortening the sentence itself.

The statutory rate

18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(A) provides that “a prisoner, except for an ineligible prisoner under subparagraph (D), who successfully completes evidence-based recidivism reduction programming or productive activities, shall earn time credits as follows: (i) A prisoner shall earn 10 days of time credits for every 30 days of successful participation in evidence-based recidivism reduction programming or productive activities. (ii) A prisoner determined by the Bureau of Prisons to be at a minimum or low risk for recidivating, who, over 2 consecutive assessments, has not increased their risk of recidivism, shall earn an additional 5 days of time credits for every 30 days of successful participation.”

The Bureau’s regulation, 28 C.F.R. § 523.42(c), restates the same two rates and adds the operative condition for the enhanced rate: the inmate must be “determined by the Bureau to be at a minimum or low risk for recidivating” and must have “maintained a consistent minimum or low risk of recidivism over the most recent two consecutive risk and needs assessments conducted by the Bureau.”

How the rate produces a number

The arithmetic is fixed by statute, and it is worth setting out plainly — with the caution that this is a description of the rate, not a projection about any individual, and that the Bureau alone computes credits.

Days of successful participation	Complete 30-day periods	Credits at the standard rate (10 per 30)	Credits at the enhanced rate (15 per 30)
30 days	1	10 days	15 days
90 days	3	30 days	45 days
180 days	6	60 days	90 days
300 days	10	100 days	150 days
540 days (18 months)	18	180 days	270 days
730 days (2 years)	24	240 days	360 days

Three limits on that table:

1. Partial periods do not count. Program Statement 5410.01 states that FSA time credits “are auto-calculated based on 30-day increments in earning status. Partial credit will not be awarded.” If the monthly posting arrives five days after someone entered earning status, nothing posts that month; the five days carry into the next cycle.
2. Earning is not applying. Accruing 270 days of credit does not mean 270 days come off anything. Application is governed by § 3624(g) and 28 C.F.R. § 523.44, and has its own conditions.
3. The enhanced rate is conditional and can be lost. A change in PATTERN risk level changes the rate going forward.

When earning starts, and what does not count

28 C.F.R. § 523.42(a) provides that “an eligible inmate begins earning FSA Time Credits after the inmate’s term of imprisonment commences (the date the inmate arrives or voluntarily surrenders at the designated Bureau facility where the sentence will be served).” That tracks 18 U.S.C. § 3585(a), which fixes when a federal sentence commences.

The statute at § 3632(d)(4)(B) bars credits for a program “successfully completed — (i) prior to the date of enactment of this subchapter; or (ii) during official detention prior to the date that the prisoner’s sentence commences under section 3585(a).” The regulation puts three dates on that:

• No credits for programming before 21 December 2018.
• Credits are available for qualifying programming from 21 December 2018 until 14 January 2020.
• From 15 January 2020, credits require successful participation in programs “that the Bureau has recommended based on the inmate’s individualized risk and needs assessment.”

The practical consequence of the second exclusion is significant and frequently missed: time in a county jail or a private detention facility awaiting sentencing does not generate FSA credits, even where the person is programming. That period may generate prior custody credit under § 3585(b), which is a different and separately computed thing.

What counts as “successful participation”

28 C.F.R. § 523.41(c) defines it: “‘Successful participation’ requires a determination by Bureau staff that an eligible inmate has participated in the EBRR programs or PAs that the Bureau has recommended based on the inmate’s individualized risk and needs assessment, and has complied with the requirements of each particular EBRR Program or PA.”

The same regulation lists circumstances in which an inmate “will generally not be considered to be ‘successfully participating'”:

• Placement in a Special Housing Unit;
• Designation status outside the institution — extended medical placement in a hospital or outside institution, an escorted trip, a furlough;
• Temporary transfer to the custody of another federal or non-federal government agency, including a state or federal writ or a transfer to state custody for service of sentence;
• Placement in mental health or psychiatric holds; or
• “Opting out” — choosing not to participate in the recommended programs.

The regulation adds that “temporary operational or programmatic interruptions authorized by the Bureau that would prevent an inmate from participation in EBRR programs or PAs will not ordinarily affect an eligible inmate’s ‘successful participation.'” A lockdown, in other words, is not supposed to stop the clock. A trip to the Special Housing Unit is.

Opting out has a defined consequence: “Opting out will result in exclusion from further benefits or privileges allowable under the FSA, until the date the inmate ‘opts in’ (chooses to participate in the EBRR programs or PAs that the Bureau has recommended based on the inmate’s individualized risk and needs assessment, as documented by staff).” Program Statement 5410.01 adds a trap worth flagging: failing to complete the SPARC-13 survey assessments on time “will delay completion and negatively impact the inmate’s ability to begin earning FTCs as the inmate will be considered ‘opted out,’ and therefore is in non-earning status regardless of eligibility to earn FTCs.” Refusing the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program also puts a person in non-earning status under the Program Statement.

Losing and restoring credits

Under 28 C.F.R. § 523.43, “an inmate may lose earned FSA Time Credits for violation of the requirements or rules of an EBRR Program or PA,” through the disciplinary procedures in 28 C.F.R. part 541. Program Statement 5410.01 adds three operational points: only credits already earned can be taken — “future time credits cannot be impacted”; credits are treated as earned at the monthly auto-calculation or the last Program Review, whichever is more recent; and loss of credits “cannot be entered as a suspended sanction.” Loss can be challenged through the administrative remedy program, and restoration is available “on a case-by-case basis, after clear conduct … for two consecutive risk and needs assessments conducted by the Bureau.”

If a disciplinary proceeding is the reason credits went away, that proceeding is where the fight is. See inmate discipline proceedings, the inmate discipline program policy, and prison rules and discipline.

The Three Gates: Earning Credits, Applying Credits, and the Transfer Decision

Three separate legal tests stand between a federal prisoner and an earlier move to prerelease custody, and readers routinely merge them into one. They are not one. A person can clear the first and fail the second. The gates run in order.

Gate one — the offense of conviction. 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D) lists 68 provisions of law. “A prisoner is ineligible to receive time credits under this paragraph if the prisoner is serving a sentence for a conviction under any of the following provisions of law.” This is a status test keyed to the offense of conviction, not to conduct, not to the guideline range, and not to the security level. One disqualifying count in a multi-count judgment closes the gate. The Bureau’s regulation restates it: “if the inmate is serving a term of imprisonment for an offense specified in 18 U.S.C. 3632(d)(4)(D), the inmate is not eligible to earn FSA Time Credits.”

Gate two — the immigration bar on applying credits. § 3632(d)(4)(E) provides that “a prisoner is ineligible to apply time credits under subparagraph (C) if the prisoner is the subject of a final order of removal under any provision of the immigration laws (as such term is defined in section 101(a)(17) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(17))).” Note precisely what this does and does not say. It bars application, not earning. It is triggered by a final order of removal, not by being a non-citizen, not by a pending removal proceeding, and not by the existence of an immigration detainer. The Bureau’s regulation, 28 C.F.R. § 523.44(a)(2), tracks the statute: someone “subject to a final order of removal under immigration laws as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(17) … the Bureau may not apply FSA Time Credits toward prerelease custody or early transfer to supervised release.” Where an institution hearing program proceeding or a detainer is in the file, the date and status of any removal order is the fact that matters.

Gate three — the § 3624(g) transfer conditions. Even for someone who is earning and not barred from applying, § 3624(g)(1) imposes four further conditions before the Director may transfer anyone. The statute says the subsection “applies in the case of a prisoner (as such term is defined in section 3635) who —

• (A) has earned time credits under the risk and needs assessment system developed under subchapter D … in an amount that is equal to the remainder of the prisoner’s imposed term of imprisonment;
• (B) has shown through the periodic risk reassessments a demonstrated recidivism risk reduction or has maintained a minimum or low recidivism risk, during the prisoner’s term of imprisonment;
• (C) has had the remainder of the prisoner’s imposed term of imprisonment computed under applicable law; and
• (D)(i) in the case of a prisoner being placed in prerelease custody, the prisoner — (I) has been determined under the System to be a minimum or low risk to recidivate pursuant to the last 2 reassessments of the prisoner; or (II) has had a petition to be transferred to prerelease custody or supervised release approved by the warden of the prison, after the warden’s determination that — (aa) the prisoner would not be a danger to society if transferred to prerelease custody or supervised release; (bb) the prisoner has made a good faith effort to lower their recidivism risk through participation in recidivism reduction programs or productive activities; and (cc) the prisoner is unlikely to recidivate; or (ii) in the case of a prisoner being placed in supervised release, the prisoner has been determined under the System to be a minimum or low risk to recidivate pursuant to the last reassessment.”

Condition (A) is the one that surprises people. Credits must equal the remainder of the imposed term. That is a moving target, and it is why a life sentence can never satisfy § 3624(g)(1)(A): there is no remainder that a finite number of credits can equal.

The regulation adds two more conditions for early transfer to supervised release specifically, at 28 C.F.R. § 523.44(d): the person must have “a term of supervised release after imprisonment included as part of his or her sentence as imposed by the sentencing court,” and “the application of FSA Time Credits would result in transfer to supervised release no earlier than 12 months before the date that transfer to supervised release would otherwise have occurred.” Someone sentenced without a supervised release term cannot have credits applied to advance a supervised release date, because there is none to advance.

The gates, side by side

	Gate 1: earning	Gate 2: applying	Gate 3: transfer
Authority	§ 3632(d)(4)(D)	§ 3632(d)(4)(E); 28 C.F.R. § 523.44(a)(2)	§ 3624(g)(1); 28 C.F.R. § 523.44(b)–(d)
Question asked	Is the offense of conviction on the 68-item list?	Is there a final order of removal?	Are the credit, risk, computation and supervised-release conditions all met?
Turns on	The statute of conviction	Immigration status — a final order, nothing less	PATTERN level, reassessment history, sentence computation, warden approval
Decided by	Operates by statute; recorded by the unit team, with referral to the local Consolidated Legal Center in unclear cases	The Bureau, on the immigration record	The Bureau; the warden on a § 3624(g)(1)(D)(i)(II) petition
Effect of failing	No credits accrue at all	Credits accrue but cannot be applied	Credits accrue and are applied only when the conditions are met

None of these gates is a discretionary judgment about whether someone deserves early release. They are conditions. And none of them can be assessed from a description of an offense — they turn on the statute of conviction as it appears in the judgment, the immigration record, and the Bureau’s own computation. That is why no page, and no online tool, can tell anyone where they stand.

First Step Act Disqualifying Offenses: Who Is Ineligible?

18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D) lists 68 provisions of law. A conviction under any one of them makes a prisoner ineligible to earn First Step Act time credits. The list is closed, it is keyed to the statute of conviction, and several entries carry conditions written into the clause itself.

Below is the full list as the statute now reads, clause by clause, with the statute’s own “relating to” description. Where the statute writes a condition or an exception into a clause, that condition appears here — because those conditions are where most real disputes live.

Offenses under title 18, United States Code

Clause	Provision	The statute’s description, including any condition
(i)	18 U.S.C. § 32	Destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities
(ii)	18 U.S.C. § 33	Destruction of motor vehicles or motor vehicle facilities
(iii)	18 U.S.C. § 36	Drive-by shootings
(iv)	18 U.S.C. § 81	Arson within special maritime and territorial jurisdiction
(v)	18 U.S.C. § 111(b)	Assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers or employees using a deadly or dangerous weapon or inflicting bodily injury
(vi)	18 U.S.C. § 113(a)(1), (7) or (8)	Assault with intent to commit murder; assault resulting in substantial bodily injury to a spouse or intimate partner, a dating partner, or an individual who has not attained the age of 16 years; or assault of a spouse, intimate partner or dating partner by strangling, suffocating, or attempting to strangle or suffocate
(vii)	18 U.S.C. § 115	Influencing, impeding or retaliating against a federal official by injuring a family member — except for a threat made in violation of that section
(viii)	18 U.S.C. § 116	Female genital mutilation
(ix)	18 U.S.C. § 117	Domestic assault by a habitual offender
(x)	18 U.S.C. ch. 10	Any section — biological weapons
(xi)	18 U.S.C. ch. 11B	Any section — chemical weapons
(xii)	18 U.S.C. § 351	Congressional, Cabinet and Supreme Court assassination, kidnapping and assault
(xiii)	18 U.S.C. § 521	Criminal street gangs
(xiv)	18 U.S.C. § 751	Prisoners in custody of an institution or officer (escape)
(xv)	18 U.S.C. § 793	Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information
(xvi)	18 U.S.C. § 794	Gathering or delivering defense information to aid a foreign government
(xvii)	18 U.S.C. ch. 39	Any section — explosives and other dangerous articles, except for § 836 (transportation of fireworks into a State prohibiting sale or use)
(xviii)	18 U.S.C. § 842(p)	Distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices and weapons of mass destruction, but only if the conviction involved a weapon of mass destruction as defined in § 2332a(c)
(xix)	18 U.S.C. § 844(f)(3), (h) or (i)	Use of fire or an explosive
(xx)	18 U.S.C. § 871	Threats against the President and successors to the Presidency
(xxi)	18 U.S.C. § 879	Threats against former Presidents and certain other persons
(xxii)	18 U.S.C. § 924(c)	Unlawful possession or use of a firearm during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime
(xxiii)	18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(1)	Fraud and related activity in connection with computers
(xxiv)	18 U.S.C. § 1091	Genocide
(xxv)	18 U.S.C. ch. 51	Any section — homicide, except § 1112 (manslaughter), § 1113 (attempt to commit murder or manslaughter, but only where the conviction was for an attempt to commit manslaughter), § 1115 (misconduct or neglect of ship officers), or § 1122 (protection against the human immunodeficiency virus)
(xxvi)	18 U.S.C. ch. 55	Any section — kidnapping
(xxvii)	18 U.S.C. ch. 77	Any offense — peonage, slavery and trafficking in persons, except §§ 1593 through 1596
(xxviii)	18 U.S.C. § 1751	Presidential and Presidential staff assassination, kidnapping and assault
(xxix)	18 U.S.C. § 1791	Providing or possessing contraband in prison
(xxx)	18 U.S.C. § 1792	Mutiny and riots
(xxxi)	18 U.S.C. § 1841(a)(2)(C)	Intentionally killing or attempting to kill an unborn child
(xxxii)	18 U.S.C. § 1992	Terrorist attacks and other violence against railroad carriers and against mass transportation systems on land, on water, or through the air
(xxxiii)	18 U.S.C. § 2113(e)	Bank robbery resulting in death
(xxxiv)	18 U.S.C. § 2118(c)	Robberies and burglaries involving controlled substances resulting in assault, putting in jeopardy the life of any person by the use of a dangerous weapon or device, or death
(xxxv)	18 U.S.C. § 2119	Taking a motor vehicle — carjacking
(xxxvi)	18 U.S.C. ch. 105	Any section — sabotage, except § 2152
(xxxvii)	18 U.S.C. ch. 109A	Any section — sexual abuse
(xxxviii)	18 U.S.C. § 2250	Failure to register as a sex offender
(xxxix)	18 U.S.C. § 2251	Sexual exploitation of children
(xl)	18 U.S.C. § 2251A	Selling or buying of children
(xli)	18 U.S.C. § 2252	Certain activities relating to material involving the sexual exploitation of minors
(xlii)	18 U.S.C. § 2252A	Certain activities involving material constituting or containing child pornography
(xliii)	18 U.S.C. § 2260	Production of sexually explicit depictions of a minor for importation into the United States
(xliv)	18 U.S.C. § 2283	Transportation of explosive, biological, chemical, or radioactive or nuclear materials
(xlv)	18 U.S.C. § 2284	Transportation of terrorists
(xlvi)	18 U.S.C. § 2291	Destruction of a vessel or maritime facility, but only if the conduct that led to the conviction involved a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury
(xlvii)	18 U.S.C. ch. 113B	Any section — terrorism
(xlviii)	18 U.S.C. § 2340A	Torture
(xlix)	18 U.S.C. § 2381	Treason
(l)	18 U.S.C. § 2442	Recruitment or use of child soldiers
(li)	An offense described in 18 U.S.C. § 3559(c)(2)(F)	Only where the offender was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year, and has a previous conviction for which the offender served a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year for a federal or state offense “by whatever designation and wherever committed” consisting of murder (§ 1111), voluntary manslaughter (§ 1112), assault with intent to commit murder (§ 113(a)), aggravated sexual abuse and sexual abuse (§§ 2241, 2242), abusive sexual contact (§§ 2244(a)(1), (a)(2)), kidnapping (ch. 55), carjacking (§ 2119), arson (§ 844(f)(3), (h) or (i)), or terrorism (ch. 113B)

Offenses outside title 18

Clause	Provision	The statute’s description, including any condition
(lii)	Atomic Energy Act § 57(b), 42 U.S.C. § 2077(b)	Engagement or participation in the development or production of special nuclear material
(liii)	Atomic Energy Act § 92, 42 U.S.C. § 2122	Prohibitions governing atomic weapons
(liv)	Atomic Energy Act § 101, 42 U.S.C. § 2131	Atomic energy license requirement
(lv)	Atomic Energy Act §§ 224, 225, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2274, 2275	Communication or receipt of restricted data
(lvi)	Atomic Energy Act § 236, 42 U.S.C. § 2284	Sabotage of nuclear facilities or fuel
(lvii)	49 U.S.C. § 60123(b)	Damaging or destroying a pipeline facility, but only if the conduct that led to the conviction involved a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury
(lviii)	Controlled Substances Act § 401(a), 21 U.S.C. § 841	Manufacturing or distributing a controlled substance, in the case of a conviction for an offense described in subparagraph (A), (B) or (C) of § 841(b)(1) for which death or serious bodily injury resulted from the use of such substance
(lix)	INA § 276(a), 8 U.S.C. § 1326	Reentry of a removed alien, but only if the alien is described in paragraph (1) or (2) of subsection (b) of that section
(lx)	INA § 277, 8 U.S.C. § 1327	Aiding or assisting certain aliens to enter the United States
(lxi)	INA § 278, 8 U.S.C. § 1328	Importation of an alien into the United States for an immoral purpose
(lxii)	Export Administration Act of 1979, 50 U.S.C. § 4611 et seq.	Any section
(lxiii)	IEEPA § 206, 50 U.S.C. § 1705	International Emergency Economic Powers Act penalties
(lxiv)	National Security Act of 1947 § 601, 50 U.S.C. § 3121	Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants and sources
(lxv)	21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(i) or (B)(i); 21 U.S.C. § 960(b)(1)(A) or (2)(A)	Heroin — only if the sentencing court finds that the offender was an organizer, leader, manager or supervisor of others in the offense, as determined under the guidelines promulgated by the United States Sentencing Commission
(lxvi)	21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(vi) or (B)(vi); 21 U.S.C. § 960(b)(1)(F) or (2)(F)	Fentanyl — a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of N-phenyl-N-[1-(2-phenylethyl)-4-piperidinyl] propanamide. No organizer finding is required by this clause
(lxvii)	21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A)(viii) or (B)(viii); 21 U.S.C. § 960(b)(1)(H) or (2)(H)	Methamphetamine — only if the sentencing court finds that the offender was an organizer, leader, manager or supervisor of others in the offense, as determined under the guidelines promulgated by the United States Sentencing Commission
(lxviii)	21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A) or (B); 21 U.S.C. § 960(b)(1) or (2)	Only if the sentencing court finds both that the offense involved a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of N-phenyl-N-[1-(2-phenylethyl)-4-piperidinyl] propanamide or any analogue thereof, and that the offender was an organizer, leader, manager or supervisor of others in the offense

Four things this list does not do

It does not disqualify anyone by category. “Violent crime” is not a category in § 3632(d)(4)(D). Neither is “drug trafficking,” “white collar,” or “sex offense.” The statute works by citation. A conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 111(a) — assault on a federal officer without a weapon and without bodily injury — is not on the list; a conviction under § 111(b) is. That distinction is invisible in a plain-English description of the same conduct.

It does not include a status test. People sometimes see lists that add “D.C. Code offenders,” “state offenders housed in federal prisons,” or “people serving life sentences” as though those were disqualifying offenses. They are not in § 3632(d)(4)(D), and the Bureau’s regulation defining who may earn credits says the opposite about the first two: “any inmate sentenced to a term of imprisonment pursuant to a conviction for a Federal criminal offense, or any person in the custody of the Bureau, is eligible to earn FSA Time Credits,” subject only to the § 3632(d)(4)(D) exception. A life sentence is excluded for a different reason — § 3624(g)(1)(A) requires credits equal to the remainder of the imposed term, and a life term has no such remainder. Precision here is not pedantry; it changes who asks the question.

It does not reach conduct that was not charged. The test is the offense of conviction, not the offense conduct, the relevant conduct at sentencing, or an enhancement. Where a clause does turn on a finding — the organizer finding in clause (lxv) and (lxviii), the death-or-serious-bodily-injury condition in clause (lviii) — the statute says so expressly, and says who makes the finding.

It does not decide the immigration question. The final-order-of-removal bar in § 3632(d)(4)(E) is a separate provision, in a separate subparagraph, doing separate work. It is not an offense.

Where a judgment is ambiguous, Program Statement 5410.01 directs that cases where eligibility is unclear “may be referred to an institution’s local Consolidated Legal Center (CLC) for guidance,” and that “an inmate’s eligibility status will be documented on the inmate’s Individualized Needs Plan in the Insight case management system, and the inmate will receive a copy.” That copy is the document to ask for. Our companion page on the same question from the release-planning side is offenses that preclude early release.

What BOP Computes, and How to Read Your FSA Time Credit Assessment

The Bureau of Prisons computes First Step Act time credits by automated monthly calculation and records the result on a document called the FSA Time Credit Assessment, which staff also call the FTC Worksheet. Nobody outside the Bureau computes these credits, and no online calculator produces a number the Bureau is bound by. What follows is how the Bureau’s own computation works and how to read the paperwork it generates.

Where the numbers come from

Program Statement 5410.01 describes the mechanism: “FTCs are auto-calculated based on 30-day increments in earning status. Partial credit will not be awarded. FTCs will be credited on a monthly basis agency-wide, as well as during the inmate’s regularly scheduled Program Reviews, based on a completed 30-day period.”

Three inputs drive that calculation:

1. Eligibility status, recorded as an FSA eligibility assignment in SENTRY, the Bureau’s records system, and documented on the Individualized Needs Plan.
2. Earning status — whether the person is currently accruing days. Someone can be eligible and still be in non-earning status, for example after opting out or refusing the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program.
3. PATTERN risk level, which decides whether the rate is 10 or 15 days per 30-day period.

The documents to get, and what each one shows

Document	What it is	What to look for on it
FSA Time Credit Assessment (FTC Worksheet)	The Bureau’s computation of credits earned and applied. Program Statement 5410.01: these “will be automatically uploaded to the Inmate Central File during each auto-calculation. Inmates will be provided a copy of the most recent FTC Worksheet during regularly scheduled program reviews.”	Eligibility status; earning status and any non-earning periods; the earning rate being used; total credits earned; credits applied and to what
Individualized Needs Plan (Insight)	The case management record of the assessment, the recommended EBRR programs and productive activities, and the FSA eligibility determination	Whether the programs actually being done are the ones the Bureau recommended; a decline or opt-out code that nobody mentioned
Sentence Monitoring Computation Data (the sentence computation sheet)	The Bureau’s computation of the sentence itself — commencement date, prior custody credit, good conduct time, projected release date	Whether prior custody credit and good conduct time are right, since § 3624(g)(1)(C) requires the remainder of the term to be “computed under applicable law.” See the sentence monitoring computation sheet
Program Review Report	The unit team’s periodic review	The PATTERN and SPARC-13 results, program assignments, and any noted delay in initial classification

Reading the worksheet: five questions worth asking

These are diagnostic questions, not eligibility conclusions. The answers point to whether something needs to be raised with the unit team or through the administrative remedy process.

1. Does the eligibility line match the judgment? The disqualifying-offense determination is keyed to the statute of conviction. If the worksheet says ineligible, the next question is which clause of § 3632(d)(4)(D) the Bureau says applies, and whether the count of conviction actually falls within it.
2. Are there non-earning periods, and does each one have a reason? SHU placement, an outside medical trip, a writ to another jurisdiction, a mental health hold, and opting out all produce non-earning time under 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(c)(4). A lockdown should not.
3. Is the rate 10 or 15? The enhanced rate requires minimum or low risk maintained “over the most recent two consecutive risk and needs assessments.” If the risk level changed, the rate should have changed with it — and the two-assessment history is checkable.
4. Is the start date right? Earning starts when the term of imprisonment commences under § 3585(a) — arrival at, or voluntary surrender to, the designated facility. Programming done in pretrial detention does not count. Programming done before 21 December 2018 does not count.
5. Does the sentence computation underneath it hold up? § 3624(g)(1)(A) measures credits against “the remainder of the prisoner’s imposed term of imprisonment.” If the underlying computation is wrong, everything above it is wrong. See challenging a BOP sentence computation and the sentence computation manual.

What the Bureau projects, and what it does not

Program Statement 5410.01 draws a line worth knowing. “For Minimum and Low PATTERN risk inmates … the Bureau will initially estimate an FSA conditional Projected Release Date (PRD) by calculating the maximum number of potential FTC that an inmate may earn during his or her sentence.” That projection “is subject to change during the inmate’s incarceration, and it will be adjusted if the inmate’s PATTERN score changes or if the inmate enters non-earning status.” The Program Statement then states the limit expressly: “FTC will not be applied towards an inmate’s release date unless earned. Medium and High PATTERN risk inmates may earn FTC, but will not receive an estimated FSA PRD.”

So there are people who are earning credits and who will not see a projected date on their paperwork at all. That is by policy design, not an error.

On the referral timing, the Program Statement provides that residential reentry center and home confinement referrals “will ordinarily be submitted to the respective Residential Reentry Management (RRM) office 12 months in advance of the inmate’s PRD or at least 60 days prior to the projected RRC/HC placement date, whichever is greater,” and that the recommendation includes the days supported by the Five Factor Review under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) “plus the remaining number of FTC days not applied to supervised release at the time of the referral.” It adds a caution that matters to families making plans: “there is no expectation the RRC/HC placement date will be modified once the referral has been submitted to the RRM office.” See halfway houses, halfway house placement procedures, and the residential reentry center release plan.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: We do not build release-date estimates, and we advise people to treat any tool that produces one as a prompt for questions rather than an answer. What we do is read the Bureau’s own documents against the regulation: the FTC Worksheet, the Individualized Needs Plan, the sentence computation sheet, and the Program Review Report, side by side. In our experience the discrepancies that matter are almost always mundane — an eligibility code entered against the wrong count, a non-earning period nobody explained, a risk level that moved without the rate moving with it. Those are correctable through the unit team and, if necessary, the administrative remedy process. A predicted date is not correctable, because it was never a fact.

PATTERN and SPARC-13: Risk and Needs Assessment Tools

PATTERN is the Department of Justice’s actuarial recidivism risk tool; SPARC-13 is the Bureau of Prisons’ needs assessment. Together they form the “risk and needs assessment system” that 18 U.S.C. § 3632(a) required the Attorney General to build. Neither is law. Both are administrative tools, and both are revisable by the agency that owns them.

What the statute required

Section 3632(a) directed the Attorney General, “in consultation with the Independent Review Committee authorized by the First Step Act of 2018,” to “develop and release publicly on the Department of Justice website a risk and needs assessment system,” to be used to:

• “determine the recidivism risk of each prisoner as part of the intake process, and classify each prisoner as having minimum, low, medium, or high risk for recidivism”;
• “assess and determine, to the extent practicable, the risk of violent or serious misconduct of each prisoner”;
• “determine the type and amount of evidence-based recidivism reduction programming that is appropriate for each prisoner and assign each prisoner to such programming accordingly, and based on the prisoner’s specific criminogenic needs”;
• “reassess the recidivism risk of each prisoner periodically, based on factors including indicators of progress, and of regression, that are dynamic and that can reasonably be expected to change while in prison”; and
• reassign the prisoner to appropriate programs so that “all prisoners at each risk level have a meaningful opportunity to reduce their classification during the period of incarceration.”

18 U.S.C. § 3635(6) defines a “risk and needs assessment tool” as “an objective and statistically validated method through which information is collected and evaluated” to determine intake risk, the programs that will best minimize that risk, and periodic reassessment “based on factors including indicators of progress and of regression, that are dynamic and that can reasonably be expected to change while in prison.”

PATTERN

PATTERN stands for Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs. Program Statement 5410.01 describes it as “the recidivism risk assessment tool and part of the Bureau’s FSA-approved Risk and Needs Assessment System,” which “is completed during the inmate’s Initial Classification and is used to assign each incoming inmate an initial recidivism risk level of Minimum, Low, Medium, or High.”

Four points that people get wrong:

• It is a score, not a status. The four levels are Minimum, Low, Medium and High. The statute requires periodic reassessment, and the Program Statement contemplates the score moving.
• It requires a completed sentence computation. The Program Statement notes that “completing the PATTERN tool requires the inmate’s sentence computation to be completed. If the sentence computation is incomplete, the Initial Classification should be delayed pending its completion.” Initial Classification is “ordinarily completed within 28 days of the inmate’s arrival.”
• The score does two separate jobs. It sets the earning rate — 10 versus 15 days per 30-day period. And it is a condition of transfer under § 3624(g)(1)(D). Those are different tests with different histories: two consecutive assessments for the enhanced rate, and the last two reassessments for prerelease custody, or the last reassessment for supervised release.
• It is not law. It is a Department of Justice actuarial instrument. 18 U.S.C. § 3631(b) requires the Attorney General, “on an annual basis,” to review, validate and release the system, and to make revisions and updates as appropriate, including updates to reduce identified unwarranted disparities. A tool that is reviewed and revised annually by statute is by definition not fixed. Our page on the score and how it is used is PATTERN risk score.

The tool has drawn sustained criticism — for reliance on static historical factors that a person cannot change, and for differential predictive accuracy across demographic groups. The statutory answer to that criticism is the annual review and validation duty in § 3631(b) and the Independent Review Committee in § 3631(a)(6). Whether those mechanisms have worked is a live policy question, and one the Attorney General’s annual reports under 18 U.S.C. § 3634 are supposed to inform.

SPARC-13

SPARC-13 is the Standardized Prisoner Assessment for Reduction in Criminality. Program Statement 5410.01 describes it as “the Bureau’s needs assessment system and the other half of the Bureau’s FSA-approved Risk and Needs Assessment System,” used “to assess the inmate in 13 need areas which can be targeted to reduce the inmate’s risk of recidivating.”

The thirteen need areas are anger and hostility; antisocial peers; cognitions; dyslexia and learning needs; education; family and parenting; financial and poverty issues; medical needs; mental health; recreation, leisure and fitness; substance use; trauma; and work and employment skills.

Two operational facts about SPARC-13 carry real consequences:

• It is a multi-part, multi-department process that requires the person’s own participation. The Program Statement says it “is ordinarily completed within the 30 days of an inmate’s arrival, however, portions of the SPARC-13 assessment require the inmate’s active participation.”
• Not completing it produces opt-out status. “Failure on the inmate’s part to complete the survey assessments timely will delay completion and negatively impact the inmate’s ability to begin earning FTCs as the inmate will be considered ‘opted out,’ and therefore is in non-earning status regardless of eligibility to earn FTCs.” Somebody who arrives, is unwell or transferred or simply not told, and misses the survey window can find months later that the credits never started.

SPARC-13 results drive program recommendations: “using SPARC-13, staff will recommend and document EBRR programs and/or PAs for inmates.” Declining a recommended program produces a decline code and opt-out status; accepting places the person in the program or on a waitlist, keyed into SENTRY.

The dyslexia entry deserves a note, because it is the one need area written into the statute by name. 18 U.S.C. § 3635(1) defines “dyslexia” as “an unexpected difficulty in reading for an individual who has the intelligence to be a much better reader, most commonly caused by a difficulty in the phonological processing … which affects the ability of an individual to speak, read, and spell,” and § 3635(2) requires a “dyslexia screening program” that is evidence-based with proven psychometrics for validity, efficient and low-cost, and readily available. Section 3634(8) requires the Attorney General’s annual report to include statistics on the prevalence of dyslexia among federal prisoners and on any change in the effectiveness of dyslexia mitigation programs.

Evidence-Based Recidivism Reduction Programs (EBRRs) and Productive Activities (PAs)

EBRRs and PAs are the two categories of activity that generate First Step Act time credits. The statute defines both, and the difference between them is not cosmetic: EBRRs are targeted at criminogenic need, while PAs exist to let people already assessed at minimum or low risk stay productive and hold that assessment.

The statutory definitions

18 U.S.C. § 3635(3) defines an “evidence-based recidivism reduction program” as “either a group or individual activity that — (A) has been shown by empirical evidence to reduce recidivism or is based on research indicating that it is likely to be effective in reducing recidivism; (B) is designed to help prisoners succeed in their communities upon release from prison; and (C) may include” thirteen listed categories:

• social learning and communication, interpersonal, anti-bullying, rejection response and other life skills;
• family relationship building, structured parent-child interaction and parenting skills;
• classes on morals or ethics;
• academic classes;
• cognitive behavioral treatment;
• mentoring;
• substance abuse treatment;
• vocational training;
• faith-based classes or services;
• civic engagement and reintegrative community services;
• a prison job, including through a prison work program;
• victim impact classes or other restorative justice programs; and
• trauma counseling and trauma-informed support programs.

Section 3635(5) defines a “productive activity” as “either a group or individual activity that is designed to allow prisoners determined as having a minimum or low risk of recidivating to remain productive and thereby maintain a minimum or low risk of recidivating, and may include the delivery of the programs described in [the EBRR definition] to other prisoners.”

The Bureau’s regulation, 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(a)–(b), restates both definitions in nearly identical terms.

What that means in a facility

Read those definitions against the reality of a compound and two things follow.

A prison job can be an EBRR. The statute lists “a prison job, including through a prison work program” among the categories. Work assignments are not merely compatible with credit-earning; Congress named them. See inmate work assignments.

Availability is not uniform, and the statute knows it. 18 U.S.C. § 3621(h)(6) requires the Director to “provide all prisoners with the opportunity to actively participate in evidence-based recidivism reduction programs or productive activities, according to their specific criminogenic needs, throughout their entire term of incarceration,” and sets a priority rule: “priority for participation in recidivism reduction programs shall be given to medium-risk and high-risk prisoners, with access to productive activities given to minimum-risk and low-risk prisoners.” During the two-year phase-in, § 3621(h)(3) directed that “priority for such programs and activities shall be accorded based on a prisoner’s proximity to release date.” Section 3634(2) requires the annual report to identify “any gaps or shortages in capacity of such programs and activities.”

Programs commonly offered across the Bureau include the Residential Drug Abuse Program, literacy and GED instruction, education programs generally, career and technical education, mental health programs, religious programs, and parenting and family reunification work. The Bureau publishes the current catalog in its First Step Act Approved Programs Guide, and the offerings vary by facility.

RDAP deserves a separate word because it is routinely confused with the First Step Act. RDAP carries its own early-release incentive under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e), administered under separate Bureau policy with its own eligibility rules. That incentive is not a First Step Act time credit, and the two run on different tracks. See RDAP in federal prison, RDAP early release procedures, and psychology treatment programs and RDAP.

Barriers that are real and documented

Three recurring problems, each with a route:

• Waitlists. Being on a waitlist is documented in SENTRY with an assignment code. The Program Statement records that where an inmate declines participation after being on a waitlist, “the auto-calculation application will first” account for it. Ask what the assignment code says.
• Transfers. A transfer to another facility, or a temporary transfer to another agency’s custody, can interrupt earning. Under 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(c)(4)(iii), temporary transfer to the custody of another federal or non-federal agency is a circumstance in which the person is generally not “successfully participating.” See transfers and the federal inmate transfer process.
• Program completion records. Enrollment, attendance and completion are documented by staff in SENTRY and Insight. Keeping personal copies of completion certificates is worth the effort precisely because the record, not the memory, is what the auto-calculation reads.

Sentencing Reforms Under the First Step Act

Title IV made four changes to federal sentencing law. They operate in court, not in prison, and each has a different applicability rule. Two of the four have since been construed by the Supreme Court — once for defendants and once against them.

Section 401: the recidivist drug mandatory minimums

Before the First Step Act, 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A) provided that a defendant who committed a qualifying drug offense “after a prior conviction for a felony drug offense has become final … shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment which may not be less than 20 years,” and that a defendant with “two or more prior convictions for a felony drug offense” that had become final “shall be sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment without release.”

The statute now reads: “if any person commits such a violation after a prior conviction for a serious drug felony or serious violent felony has become final, such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 15 years and not more than life imprisonment”; and “if any person commits a violation of this subparagraph or of section 849, 859, 860, or 861 of this title after 2 or more prior convictions for a serious drug felony or serious violent felony have become final, such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 25 years.”

Two changes, not one:

1. The numbers came down. 20 years became 15; mandatory life became 25 years.
2. The trigger narrowed. The predicate changed from “a felony drug offense” — a broad category that swept in many old and comparatively minor state convictions — to “a serious drug felony or serious violent felony,” which are defined terms with their own requirements. In many cases the trigger change matters more than the number change, because a prior that used to qualify now does not.

Section 401 also narrowed the trigger for the § 841(b)(1)(B) one-prior enhancement to a prior serious drug felony or serious violent felony; the 10-year minimum itself did not change.

Applicability: the amendment applies “to any offense that was committed before Dec. 21, 2018, if a sentence for the offense has not been imposed as of Dec. 21, 2018.” It is not retroactive to people already sentenced. See mandatory minimum sentences.

Section 402: the safety valve

The safety valve at 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f) lets a court sentence a qualifying drug defendant “without regard to any statutory minimum sentence.” Section 402 replaced a single-criterion criminal-history test with a three-part one. The provision now requires, among other things, that “the defendant does not have — (A) more than 4 criminal history points, excluding any criminal history points resulting from a 1-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; (B) a prior 3-point offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines; and (C) a prior 2-point violent offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines.”

The four other requirements are unchanged in substance: no violence, credible threats of violence, or possession of a firearm or other dangerous weapon in connection with the offense; no death or serious bodily injury resulting; the defendant was not an organizer, leader, manager or supervisor and was not engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise; and, “not later than the time of the sentencing hearing,” the defendant “has truthfully provided to the Government all information and evidence the defendant has concerning the offense or offenses that were part of the same course of conduct or of a common scheme or plan.” The statute adds that the fact the defendant has nothing useful to add, or that the Government already knows it, “shall not preclude a determination by the court that the defendant has complied.”

The Supreme Court has now construed the criminal-history test, and it construed it narrowly. In Pulsifer v. United States, 601 U.S. 124 (2024), the Court held that a defendant “is eligible for safety-valve relief under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(1) only if he satisfies each of the provision’s three conditions — or said more specifically, only if he does not have more than four criminal-history points, does not have a prior three-point offense, and does not have a prior two-point violent offense.” Having any one of the three is disqualifying. The Court also held that “a conviction becomes a three- or two-point offense only when — only because — it adds three or two points to a total history score,” so “a conviction adding zero points — because, say, it is very old — cannot be a three- or two-point offense.”

Applicability: the section 402 amendments “shall apply only to a conviction entered on or after the date of enactment of this Act,” 21 December 2018. See the safety valve in federal sentencing.

Section 403: the § 924(c) “stacking” fix

This is the reform most often described inaccurately, so it is worth stating precisely what changed and what did not.

18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(C) still reads: “in the case of a violation of this subsection that occurs after a prior conviction under this subsection has become final, the person shall — (i) be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 25 years; and (ii) if the firearm involved is a machinegun or a destructive device, or is equipped with a firearm silencer or firearm muffler, be sentenced to imprisonment for life.”

The 25-year figure did not change. What changed is the trigger. Section 403 “substituted ‘violation of this subsection that occurs after a prior conviction under this subsection has become final’ for ‘second or subsequent conviction under this subsection.'” Before the amendment, a defendant charged with several § 924(c) counts in a single indictment could be sentenced as a repeat offender on counts two, three and four of that same case — the practice known as “stacking,” which produced sentences of decades for first-time offenders. Now the prior conviction must have “become final” before the new violation occurs.

Applicability, and where the Supreme Court has been. Section 403(b) provides that the section “shall apply to any offense that was committed before the date of enactment of this Act, if a sentence for the offense has not been imposed as of such date of enactment.”

• In Hewitt v. United States, 606 U.S. 419 (2025), the Court held that under § 403(b) “a sentence ‘has … been imposed’ … if, and only if, the sentence is extant — i.e., has not been vacated,” so “the Act’s more lenient penalties apply to defendants whose previous § 924(c) sentences have been vacated and who need to be resentenced following the Act’s enactment.” The Court explained that “First Step Act sentencing benefits apply to all first-time § 924(c) offenders sentenced after the Act’s enactment date (whether it is an initial sentencing or a resentencing).”
• In Rutherford v. United States, Nos. 24-820 and 24-860 (U.S. May 28, 2026), the Court closed the alternative route. It held that “when Congress declines to make a sentencing amendment retroactive — as with the change to § 924(c) — the resulting sentencing disparity cannot serve as an ‘extraordinary and compelling’ reason that warrants a sentence reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)(i),” adding that “to the extent that the Commission’s policy statement counsels otherwise, it is invalid.” Justice Barrett wrote for the Court; Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson.

Read together, the line is now sharp. Someone whose pre-Act § 924(c) sentence has been vacated and who is being resentenced gets the amended penalties. Someone whose pre-Act sentence stands cannot use the disparity created by the amendment as the extraordinary and compelling reason for a compassionate release motion. Note the difference between § 924(c) and the Armed Career Criminal Act at § 924(e), which the First Step Act did not amend.

Section 404: Fair Sentencing Act retroactivity

Section 404 defines a “covered offense” as “a violation of a Federal criminal statute, the statutory penalties for which were modified by section 2 or 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (Public Law 111-220; 124 Stat. 2372), that was committed before August 3, 2010.” Where an offense is covered, “a court that imposed a sentence for a covered offense may, on motion of the defendant, the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, the attorney for the Government, or the court, impose a reduced sentence as if sections 2 and 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 … were in effect at the time the covered offense was committed.”

Two limits are written into section 404(c): “no court shall entertain a motion made under this section to reduce a sentence if the sentence was previously imposed or previously reduced in accordance with the amendments made by sections 2 and 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 … or if a previous motion made under this section to reduce the sentence was, after the date of enactment of this Act, denied after a complete review of the motion on the merits.” And: “nothing in this section shall be construed to require a court to reduce any sentence pursuant to this section.”

The Supreme Court has construed section 404 twice. In Terry v. United States, 593 U.S. 486 (2021), it held that crack offenders whose offenses did not trigger a mandatory minimum are not covered. In Concepcion v. United States, 597 U.S. 481 (2022), it held that “the First Step Act allows district courts to consider intervening changes of law or fact in exercising their discretion to reduce a sentence” once a defendant is eligible.

What section 404 actually produced, in published data. The Sentencing Commission’s final retroactivity report on the section 404 resentencing provisions, published in August 2022, records 4,226 granted motions for sentence reduction, and for the 2,858 cases with complete data, a mean sentence reduced from 282 months to 209 months — a decrease of 72 months, or 24.4 percent. Of the motions in the Commission’s circuit table, 4,015 of 4,546 (88.3 percent) were filed by the defendant, and none by the Director of the Bureau of Prisons. That is data, not law, and it describes a closed cohort: the section 404 window is not open to new arrivals, because the covered-offense definition is fixed to conduct before 3 August 2010. Source: U.S. Sentencing Commission, First Step Act of 2018 Resentencing Provisions Retroactivity Data Report (Aug. 2022), Tables 1, 3 and 6, available through the Commission’s data reports.

Applied Insight — Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney: When a family asks whether the First Step Act “applies,” the first thing we do is separate the question into two. Is this a prison-administration question, decided by the Bureau on the record in the inmate central file? Or is it a sentencing question, decided by a judge on a motion? They travel through different systems, on different timetables, and answering the wrong one wastes months. The section 401, 402, 403 and 404 questions are all court questions, and each has its own applicability date written into the public law — those dates are usually where the analysis begins and, more often than people expect, where it ends.

Compassionate Release and Home Confinement Under the First Step Act

Section 603 of the First Step Act made two changes that are frequently merged: it let defendants file their own compassionate release motions, and it expanded a home detention pilot program for elderly and terminally ill prisoners. They are different provisions, with different decision-makers.

The defendant-filed compassionate release motion

Before December 2018 only the Director of the Bureau of Prisons could ask a court to reduce a sentence for extraordinary and compelling reasons. 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) now reads that “the court, upon motion of the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, or upon motion of the defendant after the defendant has fully exhausted all administrative rights to appeal a failure of the Bureau of Prisons to bring a motion on the defendant’s behalf or the lapse of 30 days from the receipt of such a request by the warden of the defendant’s facility, whichever is earlier, may reduce the term of imprisonment (and may impose a term of probation or supervised release with or without conditions that does not exceed the unserved portion of the original term of imprisonment), after considering the factors set forth in section 3553(a) to the extent that they are applicable, if it finds that — (i) extraordinary and compelling reasons warrant such a reduction; or (ii) the defendant is at least 70 years of age, has served at least 30 years in prison, pursuant to a sentence imposed under section 3559(c) … and that such a reduction is consistent with applicable policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission.”

Four things that sentence controls:

1. The request goes to the warden first. The clock does not start until the warden receives the request. See the request to the warden and exhaustion.
2. Thirty days is a lapse, not a deadline. The statute says “whichever is earlier” — full exhaustion of administrative appeals, or 30 days from the warden’s receipt. Waiting out the 30 days is ordinarily the faster route.
3. The court must consider the § 3553(a) factors. Eligibility and relief are separate steps. Rutherford put the point sharply: “eligibility depends on whether the prisoner can offer ‘extraordinary and compelling’ reasons that ‘warrant’ compassionate release, not on the § 3553(a) factors.”
4. The reduction must be consistent with the Commission’s applicable policy statements. That is USSG §1B1.13, amended by Amendment 814 effective 1 November 2023 — and, after Rutherford, invalid to the extent §1B1.13(b)(6) treats a non-retroactive change to § 924(c) as an extraordinary and compelling reason.

Rutherford also supplies the current framing of the standard: “under the ordinary meaning of the terms, ‘extraordinary and compelling’ reasons are those that are especially unusual and convincing.”

What the published data shows. The Sentencing Commission’s data reports are the authoritative count, and they are worth stating precisely rather than approximating. In its May 2023 report, the Commission recorded 29,440 compassionate release motions decided from October 2019 through March 2023, of which 4,747 were granted (16.1 percent) and 24,693 denied (83.9 percent). In its fiscal year 2025 report, published May 2026, the Commission recorded 14,371 motions decided across fiscal years 2022 through 2025, of which 1,963 were granted (13.7 percent) and 12,408 denied (86.3 percent). Preliminary fiscal year 2026 data through the second quarter records 894 motions decided, 125 granted (14.0 percent). Sources: U.S. Sentencing Commission, Compassionate Release Data Reports, Table 1 of each edition. Again: data, not law, and not a prediction about any motion.

Our detailed treatment of the motion itself is at compassionate release, with the statutory overview at what compassionate release is, the First Step Act change at compassionate release and the First Step Act, the exclusions at who is not eligible, and the Bureau’s own policy at compassionate release / reduction in sentence.

The elderly and terminally ill home detention pilot

Section 603(a) expanded the pilot program at 34 U.S.C. § 60541(g), under which “the Attorney General shall conduct a pilot program to determine the effectiveness of removing eligible elderly offenders and eligible terminally ill offenders from Bureau of Prisons facilities and placing such offenders on home detention until the expiration of the prison term to which the offender was sentenced.”

The First Step Act made two specific changes to the definition of “eligible elderly offender.” It “substituted ’60 years of age’ for ’65 years of age'” and “substituted ‘⅔’ for ’75 percent’.” The full statutory definition now requires an offender in Bureau custody who:

• “is not less than 60 years of age”;
• is serving a term that is not life imprisonment, based on convictions that “do not include any crime of violence (as defined in section 16 of title 18), sex offense (as defined in section 20911(5) of this title), offense described in section 2332b(g)(5)(B) of title 18, or offense under chapter 37 of title 18,” and “has served ⅔ of the term of imprisonment to which the offender was sentenced”;
• “has not been convicted in the past of any Federal or State crime of violence, sex offense, or other offense described in clause (ii)”;
• has not been determined by the Bureau, “in the sole discretion of the Bureau, to have a history of violence, or of engaging in conduct constituting a sex offense or other offense described in clause (ii)”;
• “has not escaped, or attempted to escape, from a Bureau of Prisons institution”;
• is someone for whom the Bureau “has determined that release to home detention under this section will result in a substantial net reduction of costs to the Federal Government”; and
• “has been determined by the Bureau of Prisons to be at no substantial risk of engaging in criminal conduct or of endangering any person or the public if released to home detention.”

An “eligible terminally ill offender” must meet the same offense and conduct criteria and be “determined by a medical doctor approved by the Bureau of Prisons to be — (I) in need of care at a nursing home, intermediate care facility, or assisted living facility … or (II) diagnosed with a terminal illness.” There is no age requirement for that route.

Placement is “upon written request from either the Bureau of Prisons or an eligible elderly offender or eligible terminally ill offender,” and the Attorney General “is authorized to waive the requirements of section 3624 of title 18 as necessary” to make the placement. Note the phrasing throughout: the Attorney General “may release,” the Bureau exercises “sole discretion” on the history-of-violence question, and every criterion is a determination made by someone other than the applicant. See elderly offender home detention and compassionate release for elderly inmates.

Ordinary home confinement, and why the CARES Act is not the answer any more

Outside the pilot, home confinement runs on two authorities:

• 18 U.S.C. § 3624(c), under which the Director “shall, to the extent practicable, ensure that a prisoner serving a term of imprisonment spends a portion of the final months of that term (not to exceed 12 months), under conditions that will afford that prisoner a reasonable opportunity to adjust to and prepare for the reentry of that prisoner into the community,” and may use that authority “to place a prisoner in home confinement for the shorter of 10 percent of the term of imprisonment of that prisoner or 6 months.” Section 102(b) of the First Step Act added a direction that the Bureau “shall, to the extent practicable, place prisoners with lower risk levels and lower needs on home confinement for the maximum amount of time permitted under this paragraph.”
• 18 U.S.C. § 3624(g), the First Step Act pathway, which is expressly not limited by those numbers: “the time limits under subsections (b) and (c) shall not apply to prerelease custody under this subsection.”

Section 3624(g)(2)(A) sets the conditions of First Step Act home confinement: 24-hour electronic monitoring “that enables the prompt identification of the prisoner, location, and time,” and remaining in the residence except, subject to the Director’s approval, to perform a job or job-related activities including an apprenticeship or job-seeking; to participate in assigned programming or productive activities; to perform community service; to participate in crime victim restoration activities; to receive medical treatment; to attend religious activities; or “to participate in other family-related activities that facilitate the prisoner’s successful reentry such as a family funeral, a family wedding, or to visit a family member who is seriously ill.” Where electronic monitoring “is infeasible for technical or religious reasons,” the Director may use alternative means.

Section 3624(g)(4) adds a design principle: the Director “shall, to the extent practicable, provide that increasingly less restrictive conditions shall be imposed on prisoners who demonstrate continued compliance with the conditions of such prerelease custody, so as to most effectively prepare such prisoners for reentry.”

The CARES Act authority that dominated 2020–2023 is now closed to new placements, as set out earlier in this page. See home confinement, home confinement eligibility, and the Bureau’s home confinement policy.

Other Major Reforms: Prison Conditions, Reentry, and Oversight

Beyond time credits and sentencing, the First Step Act changed several conditions-of-confinement and reentry rules. These provisions get less attention because they do not shorten sentences. They change daily life, and some of them are enforceable.

Placement close to home

Section 601 rewrote 18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) to require the Bureau to “place the prisoner in a facility as close as practicable to the prisoner’s primary residence, and to the extent practicable, in a facility within 500 driving miles of that residence.” The obligation is real, and it is doubly qualified — “as close as practicable” and “to the extent practicable” — and it is subject to bed availability, security designation, programmatic needs, medical and mental health needs, faith-based requests, the sentencing court’s recommendations, and the Bureau’s security concerns.

Two limits are structural. The statute still provides that “a designation of a place of imprisonment under this subsection is not reviewable by any court,” and that a sentencing court’s recommendation of a community corrections facility “shall have no binding effect on the authority of the Bureau.” The 500-mile provision is a directive to the agency, not a right enforceable by a prisoner in the way a deadline is. See designation and security designation and custody classification.

Pregnancy, postpartum recovery and women in custody

Section 301 and 18 U.S.C. § 4322 prohibit the use of restraints on prisoners in Bureau or Marshals Service custody “beginning on the date on which pregnancy is confirmed by a healthcare professional, and ending at the conclusion of postpartum recovery,” subject to narrow exceptions. The Act also directed the Directors of the Bureau and the Marshals Service each to “develop training guidelines regarding the use of restraints on female prisoners during the period of pregnancy, labor, and postpartum recovery.”

Section 611 requires the Bureau to supply tampons and sanitary napkins free of charge, “in a quantity that is appropriate to the healthcare needs of each prisoner,” conforming to applicable industry standards. See pregnancy and child placement, the female offender manual, and women’s federal prisons.

Juveniles and room confinement

Section 613 prohibits “the use of room confinement at a juvenile facility for discipline, punishment, retaliation, or any reason other than as a temporary response to a covered juvenile’s behavior that poses a serious and immediate risk of physical harm to any individual, including the covered juvenile,” and requires staff to attempt less restrictive techniques first. See juvenile delinquents policy.

Reentry documents and release preparation

The Act requires the Bureau to help people obtain identification documents — a Social Security card, a driver’s license or other official photo identification, and a birth certificate — before release. Those documents are the gate to housing, employment and benefits, and obtaining them is a release-preparation task that starts long before the release date. See release preparation and the release preparation program policy.

Work programs

18 U.S.C. § 3634(4) requires the Attorney General’s annual report to address the status of prison work programs, including a strategy to expand them “without reducing job opportunities for workers in the United States who are not in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons,” and “an assessment of the feasibility of expanding such programs … with the goal that 5 years after the date of enactment of this subchapter, not less than 75 percent of eligible minimum- and low-risk offenders have the opportunity to participate in a prison work program for not less than 20 hours per week.” That is a statutory reporting goal, not a promise of a job.

The First Step Act’s Impact on Federal Inmates

The Act’s practical effect on a person in Bureau custody is best described mechanism by mechanism, because the mechanisms do not overlap. Below is what actually changed for someone serving a federal sentence.

A second credit stream exists. Before December 2018, a federal prisoner’s only route to an earlier release was good conduct time under § 3624(b) — plus the RDAP incentive under § 3621(e) for those in that program. The First Step Act added a second stream that is earned differently and applied differently. Someone who is not on the § 3632(d)(4)(D) list, who completes the assessments, and who participates in the programming the Bureau recommends, accrues credits at 10 or 15 days per 30-day period.

Good conduct time is computed on a bigger base. The move from “beyond the time served” to “for each year of the prisoner’s sentence imposed by the court” produced an immediate one-time recalculation across the federal population when the change took effect, and it changed the arithmetic permanently for every sentence imposed since.

Programming is assigned, not just offered. Section 3632(b) requires the system to “provide guidance on the type, amount, and intensity of evidence-based recidivism reduction programming and productive activities that shall be assigned for each prisoner,” including “programs in which the Bureau of Prisons shall assign the prisoner to participate, according to the prisoner’s specific criminogenic needs.” Section 3632(c) requires guidance on grouping and housing so that “prisoners with a similar risk level be grouped together in housing and assignment decisions to the extent practicable.”

Prerelease custody expanded, with its own arithmetic. The § 3624(g) route is not capped by the 12-month residential reentry ceiling or the 10-percent/6-month home confinement figure in § 3624(c). Section 3624(g)(3) permits transfer to supervised release “at an earlier date, not to exceed 12 months, based on the application of time credits under section 3632.”

Conditions changed for particular populations. Pregnant and postpartum prisoners, juveniles in federal custody, and women needing hygiene products are covered by specific mandates.

Oversight became statutory. Annual reports, an assessment of Bureau compliance with § 3621(h), and an Independent Review Committee are written into the law rather than left to agency discretion.

What did not change is as important. Federal parole remains abolished for offenses committed on or after 1 November 1987; the First Step Act did not restore it. The Bureau still designates the place of imprisonment and that designation is still not reviewable by any court. And nothing in the Act converts a credit into an entitlement: § 3624(g) uses “may transfer,” § 3624(b) uses “may receive,” and every operative provision routes through a Bureau determination.

The Historical Context: Why Was Reform Needed?

The First Step Act was a response to four decades of federal sentencing policy that produced long sentences, a large federal prison population, and very little institutional capacity to prepare people for release. Understanding what preceded it explains why the Act is structured the way it is — a programming statute bolted onto a narrow set of sentencing fixes.

Determinate sentencing and the end of parole

The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 abolished federal parole for offenses committed on or after 1 November 1987 and replaced indeterminate sentencing with a determinate system: a fixed term set under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), followed by a separate term of supervised release. There is no federal parole board for these offenses and nobody “makes parole.” What remained as a release valve was good conduct time — and under the pre-2019 formula, that was a comparatively thin one.

Mandatory minimums and recidivist enhancements

Layered on top were statutory mandatory minimums, particularly for drug and firearm offenses. Two features drove the longest sentences: the recidivist enhancements in 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1), which turned on the broad category “felony drug offense” and reached mandatory life on two priors; and the § 924(c) practice of charging multiple firearm counts in a single indictment and treating counts after the first as “second or subsequent,” which stacked 25-year terms onto defendants with no prior record.

The crack-powder disparity

The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 set drug quantity thresholds for crack cocaine at a fraction of those for powder cocaine. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 narrowed that ratio, but prospectively only — leaving people sentenced before 3 August 2010 serving terms calculated under thresholds Congress had since rejected. Section 404 of the First Step Act addressed that cohort directly, and the Sentencing Commission’s final data on it appears in the sentencing section above.

The reentry gap

The structural problem the programming title addresses is that a determinate system with limited programming and limited prerelease capacity releases people with the same needs they arrived with. Congress’s answer in Title I was to make programming the currency: assess need, assign programming to that need, and pay for participation in time. Whether the answer works is precisely what the annual reports under 18 U.S.C. § 3634 are designed to measure — recidivism rates broken out “based on … the primary offense of conviction … the length of the sentence imposed and served … the Bureau of Prisons facility or facilities in which the prisoner’s sentence was served … the evidence-based recidivism reduction programming that the prisoner successfully completed, if any … the prisoner’s assessed and reassessed risk of recidivism … [and] the productive activities that the prisoner successfully completed, if any.”

How the First Step Act Became Law: A Bipartisan Effort

The First Step Act passed the Senate and House in December 2018 and was signed into law on 21 December 2018 as Public Law 115-391, 132 Stat. 5194. Its passage is legislatively unusual and worth understanding, because the compromises made along the way are visible in the statute’s text.

The two-bill structure that became one

The Act began as a prison-reform bill: programming, incentives, and a risk and needs assessment system, with no sentencing changes. That was the version that could pass the House. The Senate’s price for taking it up was the addition of sentencing reform, and what emerged as Title IV was deliberately narrow: four sections, each amending one thing, each with its own applicability rule limiting its reach.

You can read the compromise in the applicability provisions. Section 401 and section 403 apply to offenses committed before enactment only where no sentence had been imposed by 21 December 2018. Section 402 applies “only to a conviction entered on or after” that date. Section 404 alone is fully retroactive, and it is retroactive to a defined and closed cohort — offenses committed before 3 August 2010 whose penalties were modified by the Fair Sentencing Act. A statute that had been intended to be broadly retroactive would not look like this.

The Independent Review Committee as a bargaining artifact

Section 107 required that “the National Institute of Justice shall select a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization with expertise in the study and development of risk and needs assessment tools to host the Independent Review Committee,” that the Committee “shall be established not later than 30 days after the date of enactment,” and that the host organization “shall appoint not fewer than 6 members.” The composition is specified: two individuals “who have published peer-reviewed scholarship about risk and needs assessments in both corrections and community settings”; two corrections practitioners “who have developed and implemented a risk assessment tool in a corrections system or in a community supervision setting, including 1 with prior experience working within the Bureau of Prisons”; and one individual “with expertise in assessing risk assessment implementation.”

That level of specification in a statute is a sign of distrust, and it was earned: the central objection to a risk-based credit system is that the risk instrument does the real work, and the drafters wrote outside expertise into the statute rather than leaving the tool to the agency alone.

“First Step” was a description, not a slogan

The Act’s own name concedes that it was partial. Subsequent proposals have sought to broaden the eligibility list, extend the sentencing reforms retroactively, and tighten oversight of credit calculation. Those are live legislative questions, not features of current law, and this page does not treat proposals as though they were enacted.

Implementation and Oversight: Ensuring Accountability and Progress Under the First Step Act

The First Step Act built its own oversight into the statute: a deadline structure for implementation, an annual report to Congress with eight specified contents, an Independent Review Committee, and a Government Accountability Office audit. These are statutory duties, not agency practice, and they are the framework against which the Act’s implementation is measured.

The implementation timetable

18 U.S.C. § 3621(h) fixes the schedule. Within 180 days after the Attorney General “completes and releases the risk and needs assessment system,” the Director of the Bureau must:

• “implement and complete the initial intake risk and needs assessment for each prisoner (including for each prisoner who was a prisoner prior to the effective date of this subsection), regardless of the prisoner’s length of imposed term of imprisonment, and begin to assign prisoners to appropriate evidence-based recidivism reduction programs based on that determination”;
• “begin to expand the effective evidence-based recidivism reduction programs and productive activities it offers and add any new evidence-based recidivism reduction programs and productive activities necessary to effectively implement the System”; and
• “begin to implement the other risk and needs assessment tools necessary to effectively implement the System over time.”

Section 3621(h)(2) then required the Bureau to “provide such evidence-based recidivism reduction programs and productive activities for all prisoners before the date that is 2 years after the date on which the Bureau of Prisons completes a risk and needs assessment for each prisoner,” and to develop and validate the reassessment tool. During that two-year phase-in, “the priority for such programs and activities shall be accorded based on a prisoner’s proximity to release date.” Section 3621(h)(4) permitted the Bureau, from enactment, to “begin to expand any evidence-based recidivism reduction programs and productive activities that exist at a prison as of such date,” and to offer participants the statutory incentives immediately. Section 3621(h)(5) directs the Attorney General to develop policies for wardens to enter partnerships with nonprofit and other private organizations, including faith-based, art and community-based organizations, “to deliver recidivism reduction programming on a paid or volunteer basis.”

The Attorney General’s annual report

18 U.S.C. § 3634 requires that “beginning on the date that is 2 years after the date of enactment of this subchapter, and annually thereafter for a period of 5 years, the Attorney General shall submit a report to the Committees on the Judiciary of the Senate and the House of Representatives and the Subcommittees on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies of the Committees on Appropriations.” Eight contents are specified:

1. “A summary of the activities and accomplishments of the Attorney General in carrying out this Act.”
2. A summary and assessment of the types and effectiveness of the programs, including “evidence about which programs have been shown to reduce recidivism,” “the capacity of each program and activity at each prison, including the number of prisoners along with the recidivism risk of each prisoner enrolled in each program,” and “identification of any gaps or shortages in capacity of such programs and activities.”
3. Recidivism rates broken out by primary offense of conviction, length of sentence imposed and served, facility, programming completed, assessed and reassessed risk, and productive activities completed.
4. The status of prison work programs, including the expansion strategy and the 75-percent/20-hours-per-week feasibility assessment.
5. “An assessment of the Bureau of Prisons’ compliance with section 3621(h).”
6. An assessment of progress toward the subchapter’s purposes, including savings from transfers to prerelease custody or supervised release “including savings resulting from the avoidance or deferral of future construction, acquisition, and operations costs,” and from any decrease in recidivism attributable to the system.
7. An assessment of budgetary savings, with a strategy to reinvest them in federal, state and local law enforcement activities and in expanded programming.
8. Statistics on the prevalence of dyslexia among federal prisoners and on any change in the effectiveness of dyslexia mitigation programs.

Note the reporting window: two years after enactment, then annually for five years. That is a defined period, and it has consequences for how much current public data exists on any given question.

The Independent Review Committee and the Attorney General’s continuing duties

18 U.S.C. § 3631(a) requires the Attorney General to carry out the subchapter “in consultation with” the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, the Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the Director of the Office of Probation and Pretrial Services, the Director of the National Institute of Justice, the Director of the National Institute of Corrections, and the Independent Review Committee.

Section 3631(b) sets the Attorney General’s own duties: review the existing risk and needs assessment systems in operation at enactment; develop recommendations on programs and productive activities in accordance with § 3633; conduct ongoing research and data analysis on program effectiveness and on “the type, amount, and intensity of programming that most effectively reduces the risk of recidivism”; and, “on an annual basis, review, validate, and release” the system publicly, with revisions and updates as appropriate, “including updates to reduce identified unwarranted disparities to the greatest extent possible.”

The Independent Review Committee “shall assist the Attorney General in carrying out the Attorney General’s duties under sections 3631(b), 3632 and 3633,” including in reviewing existing systems, developing program recommendations, and conducting research and data analysis. The Director of the Bureau is directed to assist the Committee and to respond promptly to its requests for access to facilities, personnel and information.

Section 103 of the Act separately required a Government Accountability Office audit of the use of the risk and needs assessment system at Bureau facilities.

Where reports exist, the Bureau publishes them at its First Step Act reports page, and its general resource hub is the BOP First Step Act page.

Implementation Challenges and Criticisms

The gap between what the First Step Act provides and what a person in a given facility experiences is the subject of most of the litigation and nearly all of the frustration. Five problems recur, and each has a specific legal or administrative shape.

Program capacity does not match demand

Section 3621(h)(6) requires the Director to give “all prisoners” the opportunity to participate throughout their term, and § 3634(2)(C) requires the annual report to identify “any gaps or shortages in capacity.” That reporting requirement exists because Congress anticipated the gap. In practice, waitlists for the most sought-after programs — residential drug treatment, vocational trades — can run long, and availability differs by facility and security level. Someone whose recommended program is not offered at their facility is in a materially different position from someone whose is, and the statute’s answer to that is the reporting duty, not an individual remedy.

Non-earning status accumulates quietly

The list in 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(c)(4) — SHU placement, outside medical designation, transfer to another agency’s custody, mental health holds, opting out — is not exotic. Any of these can put someone in non-earning status for weeks or months without a formal notice that credits stopped. The regulation’s carve-out for “temporary operational or programmatic interruptions authorized by the Bureau” protects against lockdowns, but it does not cover the rest. This is the single most common source of a credit total that looks wrong.

The disqualifying-offense determination is a legal question decided administratively

Whether a count of conviction falls within one of the 68 clauses of § 3632(d)(4)(D) is a question of statutory interpretation. It is made in the first instance by a unit team, with referral to the Consolidated Legal Center in unclear cases. Several clauses require reading a condition into the record — whether an offense involved a weapon of mass destruction, whether conduct involved a substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury, whether the sentencing court made an organizer finding. Those conditions are exactly where administrative determinations go wrong, and they are checkable against the judgment and statement of reasons.

Litigation over calculation and application

Disputes about how credits are calculated, whether they must be applied, whether the Bureau may hold credits back, and how the § 3624(g) conditions are assessed have produced substantial district court litigation, with outcomes that have not been uniform. Two routes exist. The administrative remedy program — the internal BP-8 through BP-11 sequence — comes first, and is a prerequisite to most judicial review of a Bureau computation. Where the remedy process is exhausted and the dispute concerns the execution of a sentence rather than its validity, the vehicle is a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241, filed in the district of confinement. That is a different action from a § 2255 motion, which attacks the sentence itself and is filed in the sentencing court. The distinction is set out at § 2255 versus § 2241.

The exclusion list is criticized as over-broad, and the criticism is a policy argument

The 68-clause list reaches conduct well beyond what most people would call violent, and it operates by statute of conviction rather than by any individualized assessment. That is a deliberate congressional choice, and changing it requires Congress. Arguments that a particular person “should” be eligible, however sympathetic, do not move an ineligibility determination that is correct on the statute. Arguments that the Bureau has applied the wrong clause to the wrong count do.

Practical Steps for Inmates and Families

The steps below are documentation and process steps. None of them is a shortcut, and none of them changes an eligibility determination that is correct on the statute. What they do is make sure the determination being applied is the right one, and that the record supports what the Bureau’s computation says.

If you are in Bureau custody

1. Complete the assessments promptly. The SPARC-13 requires active participation, is ordinarily completed within 30 days of arrival, and not completing it produces opt-out status “regardless of eligibility to earn FTCs.” Initial Classification, which includes PATTERN, is ordinarily completed within 28 days of arrival, but requires a completed sentence computation first.
2. Ask for your FSA Time Credit Assessment in writing. Program Statement 5410.01 provides that FTC Worksheets “will be automatically uploaded to the Inmate Central File during each auto-calculation,” and that “inmates will be provided a copy of the most recent FTC Worksheet during regularly scheduled program reviews.” An Inmate Request to Staff, form BP-A0148, is the ordinary route between program reviews; see unit team and program review.
3. Ask which clause. If the worksheet records an ineligible status, the useful question is not “why am I ineligible” but “which clause of 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D), and which count of conviction.” That question has a checkable answer.
4. Do the programs the Bureau recommended, not the ones that look best. Credits attach to “successful participation in the EBRR programs or PAs that the Bureau has recommended based on the inmate’s individualized risk and needs assessment.” A worthwhile class that was not recommended does not earn credits.
5. Keep your own copies. Completion certificates, program review reports, worksheets, and the Individualized Needs Plan. When something is disputed, the record decides it, and the record travels imperfectly across transfers.
6. Use the administrative remedy process, in order and on time. Informal resolution, then BP-9, BP-10, BP-11. The regulation on loss of credits expressly directs that “inmates may seek review of the loss of earned FSA Time Credits through the Bureau’s Administrative Remedy Program.” See prison grievances.
7. Protect clear conduct. Only earned credits can be lost, but a 100- or 200-level disciplinary finding has consequences well beyond the credits themselves — including, under Program Statement 5410.01, for warden consideration of an early-transfer petition.

If you are supporting someone inside

1. Get the four documents. The FSA Time Credit Assessment, the Individualized Needs Plan, the Sentence Monitoring Computation Data sheet, and the most recent Program Review Report. Everything else is inference.
2. Learn the vocabulary. “FTC,” “earning status,” “opt-out,” “PATTERN,” “SPARC-13,” “PRD,” “RRM.” Using the Bureau’s own terms with the unit team gets better answers than describing the situation in general language.
3. Work with the unit team first. The unit manager and case manager control the assignments, the codes, and the referral. Most correctable errors are corrected there, faster than anywhere else.
4. Track dates, not estimates. Date of arrival at the designated facility, date of initial classification, dates of each risk assessment, date of each program review. Those are facts. A projected release date is a Bureau projection that the Program Statement itself says “is subject to change.”
5. Do not rely on an online calculator. No tool outside the Bureau produces a number the Bureau is bound by, and every one of them omits at least one of the conditions in § 3624(g).
6. Get advice on the legal questions early. Whether a count falls within a § 3632(d)(4)(D) clause, whether a removal order is final, and whether a sentencing-side motion is available are legal questions with deadlines attached to some of them.

Broader orientation for families is at what families should know about federal prison and surviving federal prison as a first-time offender. For someone not yet in custody, preparing for prison covers the pre-surrender work — including the fact that a self-surrender date is when the sentence, and therefore the credit clock, begins.

Future Directions and Considerations

The First Step Act named itself a first step, and the questions it left open are now being answered in three places: the courts, the Sentencing Commission, and Congress. Below is where each stands, stated as what it is rather than as prediction.

The courts

The Supreme Court has resolved five of the recurring questions. Terry (2021) limited the reach of section 404. Concepcion (2022) confirmed that district courts may consider intervening changes of law and fact once a section 404 defendant is eligible. Pulsifer (2024) read the safety valve’s criminal-history test conjunctively, against defendants. Hewitt (2025) read section 403(b) to reach vacated sentences, for defendants. Rutherford (2026) held that a non-retroactive sentencing change cannot itself supply the extraordinary and compelling reason for compassionate release, and invalidated the Commission’s policy statement to that extent.

What remains contested is largely prison-side: the mechanics of credit calculation, whether and when the Bureau must apply credits, how the § 3624(g)(1) conditions are assessed, and the treatment of non-earning status. Those disputes are litigated through the administrative remedy process and § 2241 petitions, and district court outcomes have varied.

The Sentencing Commission

After Rutherford, USSG §1B1.13(b)(6) — the “unusually long sentence” provision added by Amendment 814 effective 1 November 2023 — is invalid to the extent it treats a non-retroactive change to § 924(c) as an extraordinary and compelling reason. The Commission’s response, and the treatment of the remainder of §1B1.13, is a live question. The operative Guidelines Manual is the 2025 edition, effective 1 November 2025.

Congress

Proposals since 2018 have addressed the eligibility list, further retroactivity, and oversight of credit computation. None of them is law, and this page does not describe proposals as though they were.

What this means for someone reading now

Two practical consequences follow. First, the answer to “does the First Step Act help” depends on which mechanism is in play, and the mechanisms have moved at different speeds — the sentencing-side questions have largely been resolved by the Supreme Court, while the prison-side questions are still being worked out facility by facility and district by district. Second, anything written about this statute before mid-2026 is missing at least one controlling decision. That is the reason to check the date on whatever you are reading, including this page.

Glossary of First Step Act Terms

• Auto-calculation — the Bureau’s automated monthly computation of FSA time credits, run agency-wide and again at each program review, in completed 30-day increments.
• Covered emergency period — the CARES Act term defining the window during which the Director could exceed the ordinary home confinement limits. It has expired; only the narrower delegation in 28 C.F.R. § 0.96(u)(2) survives.
• Disqualifying offense — a conviction under one of the 68 provisions enumerated in 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D), which bars a prisoner from earning FSA time credits.
• EBRR (evidence-based recidivism reduction program) — defined at 18 U.S.C. § 3635(3) as an activity shown by empirical evidence to reduce recidivism, or based on research indicating it is likely to, and designed to help prisoners succeed on release.
• Earning status — the Bureau’s record of whether a person is currently accruing FSA time credits. A person can be eligible and in non-earning status.
• FSA time credits (FTCs) — credits earned under 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4) at 10 or 15 days per 30 days of successful participation, applied under § 3624(g) toward prerelease custody or supervised release.
• FSA Time Credit Assessment (FTC Worksheet) — the Bureau document recording the credit computation, uploaded to the inmate central file at each auto-calculation and provided at program reviews.
• Final order of removal — the immigration-law status that, under 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(E), bars application of FSA time credits. Not the same as a detainer or a pending proceeding.
• Good conduct time (GCT) — up to 54 days for each year of the sentence imposed by the court, under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1), for exemplary compliance with institutional disciplinary regulations.
• Individualized Needs Plan — the case-management document in the Insight system recording the assessment, recommended programming and FSA eligibility determination.
• Opting out — declining a recommended EBRR program or productive activity, or failing to complete the SPARC-13 survey. It puts a person in non-earning status until they opt back in.
• PA (productive activity) — defined at 18 U.S.C. § 3635(5) as an activity designed to let prisoners at minimum or low risk remain productive and maintain that risk level.
• PATTERN — Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs, the Department of Justice actuarial risk instrument that assigns a level of Minimum, Low, Medium or High.
• Prerelease custody — home confinement or a residential reentry center. Under § 3624(g)(2) it is one of the two things FSA credits can buy.
• Prisoner — defined at 18 U.S.C. § 3635(4) as “a person who has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment pursuant to a conviction for a Federal criminal offense, or a person in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons.”
• Program Statement — a Bureau of Prisons internal instruction. It is agency policy, not law; the statute and the regulation bind.
• Projected Release Date (PRD) — the Bureau’s projection. Under Program Statement 5410.01 the FSA conditional PRD is produced only for minimum and low PATTERN risk inmates and “is subject to change.”
• SPARC-13 — Standardized Prisoner Assessment for Reduction in Criminality, the Bureau’s needs assessment across 13 need areas.
• Successful participation — defined at 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(c) as participation, determined by Bureau staff, in the programs the Bureau recommended based on the individualized assessment, with compliance with each program’s requirements.
• Supervised release — the term of court-ordered supervision that follows imprisonment under 18 U.S.C. § 3583. FSA credits can advance its start by up to 12 months.

Internal and External Resources

Our related pages

Prison-side and time-credit material:

• First Step Act time credits (BOP policy) and First Step Act of 2018 (BOP policy)
• First Step Act assessments, programming and incentives and First Step Act program incentives (PS 5220.01)
• First Step Act time credits — consulting and what the First Step Act is
• Good conduct time · PATTERN risk score · offenses that preclude early release
• Early release from federal prison · prior custody credit · early termination of supervised release · presidential pardons
• Prison life · education programs · medical care levels in federal prison · federal drug offenses

Court-side material:

• Sentencing basics · the presentence report · after sentencing
• Substantial assistance under §5K1.1 · federal prison consulting services · glossary of federal criminal terms · criminal defense resources

Primary sources

• Public Law 115-391 — the First Step Act of 2018, full text
• 18 U.S.C. § 3632 — development of risk and needs assessment system, including the time-credit rates and the exclusion list
• 18 U.S.C. § 3624 — release of a prisoner, including good conduct time and § 3624(g)
• 18 U.S.C. § 3635 — definitions · 18 U.S.C. § 3631 — duties of the Attorney General · 18 U.S.C. § 3633 · 18 U.S.C. § 3634 — annual report
• 18 U.S.C. § 3621 — imprisonment, designation, and the implementation timetable · 18 U.S.C. § 3582 — compassionate release · 18 U.S.C. § 3553 — safety valve
• 18 U.S.C. § 924 — firearm penalties · 21 U.S.C. § 841 — drug penalties · 34 U.S.C. § 60541 — elderly and terminally ill home detention pilot
• 28 C.F.R. § 523.41 — definitions · 28 C.F.R. § 523.42 — earning credits · 28 C.F.R. § 523.44 — applying credits · 28 C.F.R. § 0.96 — CARES Act delegation
• BOP Program Statement 5410.01 (CN-2) — agency policy, not law
• BOP First Step Act resource page · BOP First Step Act overview · BOP First Step Act reports · First Step Act Approved Programs Guide
• U.S. Sentencing Commission compassionate release data reports · U.S. Sentencing Commission data reports · 2025 Guidelines Manual
• Supreme Court decisions: Hewitt v. United States, 606 U.S. 419 (2025) · Rutherford v. United States, Nos. 24-820 and 24-860 (2026) · Pulsifer v. United States, 601 U.S. 124 (2024)

How Our Legal Team Can Help

Elizabeth Franklin-Best, P.C. is a boutique federal criminal defense and appellate firm founded in 2019, with a national federal practice run on an intentionally small caseload. First Step Act work divides along the same line the statute does, and so does the way we staff it.

On the prison side, Christopher Zoukis leads the firm’s federal prison consulting work: reading the Bureau’s own documents against the regulation and the Program Statement, identifying where an eligibility code, an earning-status gap, a risk-level determination, or an underlying sentence computation does not hold up, and building the record for a unit-team correction or an administrative remedy. That is document work, and it is done with the client’s paperwork in front of us rather than from a description.

On the court side, Elizabeth Franklin-Best handles the sentencing and post-conviction motions: compassionate release under § 3582(c)(1)(A), sentence reductions, § 2255 motions, § 2241 petitions challenging the execution of a sentence, and appeals. She is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court and twelve of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals — every regional circuit (1st–11th) plus the D.C. Circuit — and has been admitted pro hac vice in federal courts from Montana to Florida.

What that looks like in practice:

• Reading the record against the statute. Which count of conviction, which clause of § 3632(d)(4)(D), which condition inside that clause, and whether the judgment supports the determination the Bureau made.
• Auditing the computation. The FSA Time Credit Assessment, the Individualized Needs Plan, the sentence computation sheet and the program review reports, read together rather than one at a time.
• Administrative advocacy. Inmate requests to staff, informal resolution, and the BP-9 through BP-11 sequence, with the record built for judicial review if it becomes necessary.
• Sentencing and post-conviction motions. Where a court-side route exists — section 404, a § 3582(c) motion, a § 2255 motion, a § 2241 petition — assessing whether it is available on the applicability rules and the current case law before anything is filed.
• Reentry planning. Release plans, residential reentry center and home confinement referrals, and the documentation that supports them.

We do not predict release dates, we do not tell anyone they qualify for anything, and we do not promise outcomes. What we can do is tell you what the statute and the regulation require, what the record actually shows, and which of the two systems your question belongs in.

To discuss a matter, call (843) 620-1100. The firm has offices in Columbia, South Carolina — 3710 Landmark Dr #113, Columbia, SC 29204 — and in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and serves clients nationwide.

Charting a Path Forward

The First Step Act is a real statute with real mechanisms, and it is also the most over-promised law in the federal system. Both things are true, and holding them together is the only way to make sensible decisions about it.

What the Act genuinely provides: a second credit stream that pays for programming in time; a bigger base for the good conduct time calculation; a prerelease pathway that is not capped by the old 12-month and 10-percent limits; four narrow but real sentencing changes; and the ability to take a compassionate release motion to a judge without waiting for the Bureau. Those are not small.

What it does not provide: any entitlement. Every operative provision routes through a determination made by someone else. Section 3624(b) says a prisoner “may receive” good conduct time “subject to determination by the Bureau of Prisons.” Section 3624(g) says the Director “may transfer.” The elderly offender pilot says the Attorney General “may release,” on criteria the Bureau assesses “in the sole discretion of the Bureau.” Section 404 says “nothing in this section shall be construed to require a court to reduce any sentence.”

The gap between those two paragraphs is where most disappointment lives, and it is also where the useful work is. Nobody can tell you from a description of a case whether credits will be earned, applied, or turned into an earlier move. What can be done, and what is worth doing, is narrower and more concrete: establish which mechanism is actually in play; get the four Bureau documents; check the eligibility determination against the count of conviction and the clause the Bureau says applies; check the earning record for unexplained gaps; check the sentence computation underneath it; and, on the court side, check the applicability rule for any sentencing provision before spending months on a motion that the date forecloses.

That is not a promise of a result. It is a method, and it is the difference between working from a document and working from a rumor.

Frequently Asked Questions About the First Step Act

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026