Release Authorization

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

Form number	BP-A0392
Title as printed	RELEASE AUTHORIZATION (followed on the same line by the tag “CDFRM”)
Form-face date	JUNE 10
Prescribed by	“Prescribed by P5800”
Replaces	“Replaces BP-392(58) dtd MAY 94”
Governing Program Statement	5800.19, Receiving and Discharge Manual (May 7, 2026) — the current P5800 receiving-and-discharge edition. Completion instructions are in 5800.15, Correctional Systems Manual (January 1, 2009), § 904.b
Governing regulation	None prescribes the form. The release itself is governed by 28 C.F.R. part 571, subpart D
Governing statute	18 U.S.C. § 3624(a) (offenses on or after November 1, 1987); 18 U.S.C. § 4163 (earlier offenses)
Published by BOP?	Yes — https://www.bop.gov/policy/forms/BP_A0392.pdf
Pages / structure	1 page; four blocks — header, CERTIFICATION, RELEASE ACTION, RECEIPT OF AGENT TAKING CUSTODY
Distribution as printed	“Record Copy – Receiving & Discharge File in Judgment & Commitment File; Copy – Case Management, Central File (Section 5); Copy – Control Room; Copy – Hospital; Copy – Transporting Officer”
Privacy Act notice on the form	None
False-statement warning on the form	None
Signature lines	Three staff/agent signature blocks. No inmate signature line. A right thumbprint field only

Checked against the BOP form set · 2026-09-07 · How we verify

The BP-A0392 is the single sheet of paper that authorizes a federal prison to let someone walk out the door — or to hand them to a deputy, a state officer, or an immigration agent instead. It is a staff document from top to bottom: your loved one never signs it, never gets a copy, and usually never sees it.

The policy behind it is on our Receiving and Discharge Manual page; what leaves R&D with a person — money, a bus ticket, clothes — is on release gratuities, transportation and clothing. If you came here because the date looks wrong, the two pages you want are the Sentence Computation Manual and challenging a BOP sentence computation.

What this form is

The BP-A0392 is a custody-transfer receipt and a staff certification combined on one page. The Bureau’s Correctional Systems Manual tells staff it “will be used to release inmates for completion of sentences, appeal bonds, court-ordered releases, writs of habeas corpus (except for inmates moving on a writ via bus or airlift), commutation of sentences, Interstate Agreement on Detainers, furlough transfers, transfers to state facilities, and transfers to contract RRC’s.” Reproduced from Program Statement 5800.15 at p. 67.

That list matters because it tells you what the form is not. It is not a release order and it is not the sentence computation. It does not create the release date; it records that a supervisor checked the paperwork behind a date someone else calculated. The legal authority to release comes from the statute — 18 U.S.C. § 3624(a), which provides that “A prisoner shall be released by the Bureau of Prisons on the date of the expiration of the prisoner’s term of imprisonment, less any time credited toward the service of the prisoner’s sentence as provided in subsection (b).” The regulation implementing it is 28 C.F.R. § 571.30. A Program Statement, by contrast, is the Bureau’s instruction to its own staff — it directs how the form is filled in; it is not the law that requires the release.

It is a fillable PDF: printed labels extract cleanly, ruled boxes and check-marks do not. Every block below is identified by the label BOP prints on it, never by position on the page.

The form, block by block, in its printed order

1. The identification and release header

Four fields run across the top: Inmate Name · Register No. · Institution · Date. Beneath them sit the four fields that decide everything else:

• Release Date
• Method
• Detainer: followed by a Yes box and a No box
• Custody Will Be Taken by:

“Method” is the Bureau’s release code — expiration of sentence, transfer, writ, IAD, furlough transfer. The Detainer Yes/No pair and Custody Will Be Taken by are the two entries a family should look at first: together they are the difference between meeting someone at the gate and finding a sheriff’s deputy there instead. The Bureau defines a detainer as “A formal request from a Federal, state, or local jurisdiction for an inmate’s custody upon completion of a term of imprisonment.” PS 5800.15 at p. 37. If the box is checked Yes, the paperwork behind it is the Detainer Action Letter (BP-A0394), and the process is set out on our detainers and Interstate Agreement page.

That box also reaches the calendar. 28 C.F.R. § 571.30 provides that the Bureau “may release an inmate whose release date falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, on the last preceding weekday unless it is necessary to detain the inmate for another jurisdiction seeking custody under a detainer, or for any other reason which might indicate that the inmate should not be released until the inmate’s scheduled release date.” A detainer can remove that early-weekday option — see release before a weekend or holiday.

2. CERTIFICATION

This is the operative text of the form — the paragraph a supervisor signs, printed above a Name/Title · Signature · Date row, with a Thumbprint field directly beneath it:

CERTIFICATION: I certify that this release is in accordance with applicable and controlling rules, regulations and statutory provisions. If this is a final release, it is based on a final release audit of the sentence computation provided by the Designation and Sentence Computation Center. I have personally reviewed all Judgment and Commitment Orders, U.S. Parole Commission Warrants, Notice of Actions, and detainer information, and there is no information which would preclude the release of this inmate.

Reproduced verbatim from BP-A0392, p. 1.

Read the second sentence slowly, because it is the most useful one on the page. A final release rests on “a final release audit of the sentence computation provided by the Designation and Sentence Computation Center.” The DSCC is the Bureau’s centralized office in Grand Prairie, Texas, that computes and audits sentences; the institution does not do that arithmetic. The Correctional Systems Manual says it twice: “The DSCC will audit the sentence computations of all inmates to be released, including any good time actions, before certifying each release date” (PS 5800.15 at p. 63), and “The sentence computation will be certified by the DSCC prior to release” (at p. 67). If you think the date is wrong, that sentence tells you where the number was made — and it is not the counselor’s desk.

The Thumbprint field. At release, “a right thumbprint is taken and placed on the BP-A0392, Release Authorization form” (PS 5800.19 at p. 26), and that print “will be compared with the thumbprint in the J&C file to verify the inmate’s identity by the releasing staff member” (PS 5800.15 at p. 68). It is an identity check against the file — not a signature, and not a consent.

3. RELEASE ACTION

A five-field block: Identified by: · Released by: · Funds Paid by: · Date of Release: · Time of Release:

Three separate staff entries are called for, and BOP policy directs that two of them be different people: “The staff member identifying the inmate upon release must be different from the staff member who releases the inmate.” PS 5800.15 at p. 68. A second identity check is required as well: “A second identification verification is conducted by a staff member the Warden designates. The person making the second identification signs the BP-A0392, Release Authorization form in the space provided.” PS 5800.19 at p. 28. Each institution names that designee in its own local supplement.

“Funds Paid by” is the money entry — gratuity and personal funds are issued under release gratuities, transportation and clothing. Date of Release and Time of Release create the official record of when custody ended, which is why they matter in any later dispute about an over-served day.

4. RECEIPT OF AGENT TAKING CUSTODY

The final block is a receipt signed by whoever takes the person, printed above Name/Title · Signature · Date and a Location field:

I have received the above named prisoner, together with personal property and funds in the amount of $

Reproduced verbatim from BP-A0392, p. 1.

This block is completed only when custody passes to someone else — a deputy marshal, a state officer, a transporting contractor. For a straight release to the community it stays blank. Under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers the Bureau adds a verification step: the original Evidence of Agent’s Authority form “must be available to compare the signatures of agents and identify the agents authorized to assume custody. If a discrepancy is found, the CMC is notified immediately, and the inmate is not released until proper approval is given.” PS 5800.19 at p. 31. On a temporary transfer, the copy given to the receiving official carries a stamped notation: “Inmate is to be returned to the (name of institution) and is not to be released from custody without the written permission of the Warden.” PS 5800.15 at p. 68. See state writs and transfers and transfer to state custody before release.

What the form does not carry, and where the five copies go

Three absences are worth stating plainly, because readers expect them and this form does not have them. There is no Privacy Act or Paperwork Reduction Act notice anywhere on the page. There is no false-statement warning — no reference to 18 U.S.C. § 1001, no penalty language. And there is no inmate signature line at all. If someone tells you a relative “signed away” something at release, it was not this document.

The distribution line at the foot of the page names five copies:

Copy	Goes to
Record Copy	Receiving & Discharge — filed in the Judgment & Commitment File
Copy	Case Management, Central File (Section 5)
Copy	Control Room
Copy	Hospital
Copy	Transporting Officer

Reproduced verbatim from BP-A0392, p. 1.

The person being released is not on that list. Five copies, none of them theirs. That is a real and checkable fact about this document, and it is why the form usually has to be obtained afterward rather than kept at the time. It also tells you where to look: the record copy sits in the Judgment & Commitment file and a second copy goes to Section 5 of the inmate central file, which is where a records request should be aimed.

What happens after it is signed

Once the release action is complete, “Fully executed Release Authorizations are to be returned to the Records Office and will be filed in the J&C file.” PS 5800.15 at p. 68. Separately, for a final release the computation “will be satisfied and made a prior commitment in SENTRY by the DSCC no earlier than five days prior to release,” and the institution completes the release transaction “immediately before the inmate leaves the institution.” PS 5800.15 at p. 67; PS 5800.19 at p. 28.

So the BP-A0392 ends up as a dated, signed, filed record of who authorized a release, when, and who took custody — which is exactly what makes it useful later for establishing when Bureau custody ended, whether a detainer was flagged before the gate, and which agency signed for the person.

What to do if the date behind it is wrong

Nothing on this page can tell you whether a particular release date is right, and no one should tell you that without seeing the judgment, the computation and the good-time record. What we can tell you is where the number came from and how a challenge is actually routed.

Start with the computation, not the form. The BP-A0392 records a certification; the arithmetic lives in the sentence computation the DSCC produced and audited. Ask for that document first — see your sentence monitoring computation sheet.

Then use the administrative-remedy ladder. 28 C.F.R. § 542.10 provides that “The purpose of the Administrative Remedy Program is to allow an inmate to seek formal review of an issue relating to any aspect of his/her own confinement.” In practice: an Inmate Request to Staff (BP-A0148) to the Records Office, then a BP-8 informal resolution, then the formal steps described on how to file a BP-9, then BP-10 to the region and BP-11 to the Central Office. Computation disputes are frequently resolved at the Records Office stage because they turn on a document — a corrected judgment, a jail-credit record, a good-time entry — rather than on discretion. Raise the issue early and in writing: a problem found weeks before a release date is a records problem, and the same problem found afterward is a much harder one.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: On a release-day file the first three things we pull are the BP-A0392, the sentence computation the DSCC certified, and the detainer entries. The form itself rarely contains the error — it is a certification, not a calculation — but it dates and names everything else: who signed off, on what day, and whether a detainer was flagged before the gate rather than at it. Legal representation on any of it is provided by Elizabeth Franklin-Best and the firm’s attorneys.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Release Authorization Form

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