Incident Reports

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

An incident report is the charging document in the federal prison disciplinary system — a two-page form, BP-A0288, that a staff member writes when they witness or reasonably believe someone committed a prohibited act. You should ordinarily receive your copy within 24 hours of staff becoming aware of your alleged involvement, and everything that follows — the investigation, the Unit Discipline Committee, a possible Discipline Hearing Officer hearing, and any loss of good conduct time — runs off what is written in Section 11 of that form.

Form number	BP-A0288, Incident Report (revision code CDFRM AUG 11)
Governing regulation	28 C.F.R. § 541.5, Discipline process
Bureau policy	PS 5270.09, Inmate Discipline Program (8 July 2011; CN-1, 18 November 2020)
Delivery to you	Ordinarily within 24 hours of staff becoming aware of your involvement
Investigating Officer appointed	Ordinarily within 24 hours of the incident report
UDC review	Ordinarily within 5 work days, excluding the day of issue, weekends and holidays
DHO hearing notice	At least 24 hours’ written notice, waivable
Written DHO report to you	Ordinarily within 15 work days of the decision
Appeal deadline	20 calendar days
Can it be erased?	Yes — Moderate and Low charges only, through informal resolution

Form and Program Statement text taken from the Bureau’s own posted PDFs; regulatory text verified against the eCFR as current to 6 August 2026. A Program Statement is the Bureau’s internal instruction to staff — agency policy, not law. The binding rule is the regulation at 28 C.F.R. part 541.

What an incident report is, and what happens the moment you get one

The Bureau’s word for this is “incident report.” Everyone inside calls it a shot. Formally, under § 541.5(a), “[t]he discipline process starts when staff witness or reasonably believe that you committed a prohibited act. A staff member will issue you an incident report describing the incident and the prohibited act(s) you are charged with committing.”

The report is written by the reporting employee, entered into the Bureau’s SENTRY system by a Lieutenant, and then investigated by a supervisory-level staff member who was not involved in the incident. PS 5270.09 at p. 19 specifies that the Investigating Officer “must be IDC-certified, and may not be the employee reporting the incident or otherwise be involved in the incident,” and is “ordinarily a Lieutenant.”

Three things happen fast, and knowing the order matters.

You get a copy. The form’s own distribution instruction requires “COPY-3 — Inmate within 24 hours of Part I Preparation.” The regulation says you will “ordinarily receive the incident report within 24 hours of staff becoming aware of your involvement in the incident,” and PS 5270.09 at p. 19 directs that the Investigating Officer provide a copy “at the beginning of the investigation, unless there is good cause for later delivery, such as absence of the inmate from the institution or a medical condition that argues against delivery.” Any delay must be documented in the discipline record.

You are advised of the right to remain silent — with a catch that has no counterpart in criminal court. Section 23 of the form states the advisement in the Bureau’s own words: “You are advised of your right to remain silent at all stages of the discipline process. Your silence may be used to draw an adverse inference against you at any stage of the discipline process. Your silence alone may not be used to support a finding that you have committed a prohibited act.” Read that twice. In a federal criminal trial, silence cannot be held against you. Here, it can — it simply cannot be the only thing supporting a finding.

You may be moved. Being written up does not automatically mean the Special Housing Unit, but a Lieutenant can place you in administrative detention pending the hearing. That is a non-punitive housing status under 28 C.F.R. § 541.22, separate from disciplinary segregation, which is “a punitive status imposed only by a Discipline Hearing Officer (DHO) as a sanction for committing a prohibited act(s).” Our page on solitary confinement and Special Housing Units covers what happens once you are there.

Reading form BP-A0288, section by section

The form is two pages and 27 numbered items. Everything outside the heavy rule on the printed form is for staff use only. Here is what each part does and what to look at.

Part I — the charge (items 1 through 16)

Items 1 through 8 are identification: institution, name, register number, date of incident, time, place of incident, work assignment, housing unit. Item 9 is the incident in plain words. Item 10 is the prohibited act code — the single most consequential entry on the form, because the code sets the severity level, which sets who hears the case and what can be taken. PS 5270.09 at p. 18 tells staff the whole text of the code need not be copied: “‘Destroying Government Property, Code 218’ or ‘Possessing Narcotics, Code 113’ would be acceptable listings.”

Item 11 is the description of the incident, and it is the part worth reading three times. The Program Statement requires that it “contain all facts known by the employee that are not confidential,” note “[a]nything unusual about the inmate’s behavior,” list “persons (staff, inmates, others) at the scene, and physical evidence (weapons, property, etc.) the employee may have handled,” and reflect “any actions taken, including use of force.” The Bureau states the reason plainly: “The description of the incident provides the inmate with specific evidence for which he/she may prepare a defense.”

The Program Statement also directs staff not to identify attachments and investigative materials in Section 11, and gives an example of what adequate detail looks like — for a fight, “specific actions by each inmate; e.g., throwing punches to the head with a closed fist, striking one another with closed fists, biting, scratching, hair pulling.”

Items 12 and 13 are the reporting employee’s name, signature, title, date and time. Items 14, 15 and 16 record who delivered the report to you and the exact date and time you received it. Those three boxes are where the 24-hour clock is documented, and they are the first thing to check if delivery was late.

Part II — Committee Action (items 17 through 21)

This is the Unit Discipline Committee’s section. Item 17 records your comments to the committee. Item 18 has three parts: (A) the finding — committed the prohibited act as charged, did not commit a prohibited act, or committed a different code; (B) a box for referring the charge to the DHO; and (C) a certification that “[t]he Committee advised the inmate of its finding and of the right to file an appeal within 20 calendar days.”

Item 19 requires the committee’s decision to be “Based on Specific Evidence as Follows” — a blank line that should be filled with actual evidence, not a restatement of the charge. Item 20 is the committee’s recommendation if the case is referred onward. Item 21 is the date, time and the UDC Chairman’s signature, which “certifies who sat on the UDC and that the completed report accurately reflects the UDC proceedings.”

Part III — Investigation (items 22 through 27)

Item 22 is the date and time the investigation began. Item 23 is the right-to-remain-silent advisement and the record of who gave it and when. Item 24 is your statement and “attitude.” Item 25 covers other facts, statements of people present, and disposition of evidence. Item 26 is the investigator’s comments and conclusions. Item 27 is action taken.

You do not get a copy of Part III. PS 5270.09 at p. 21 is explicit: “The inmate does not receive a copy of the investigation (Sections 23 through 27 of the incident report). However, if the case is ultimately forwarded to the DHO, the DHO must give a copy of the investigation and other relevant materials to the inmate’s staff representative, if requested, for use on the inmate’s behalf.”

That single sentence is the strongest practical argument for requesting a staff representative in any case going to the DHO. The representative can get the investigation file; you cannot. What to do with it once you have it — how a charge is actually contested — is covered at how to defend against Bureau of Prisons disciplinary proceedings.

The full sanctions menu, by severity level

These are the “Available Sanctions” tables from PS 5270.09 (at pp. 46–47, 50, 53–55), reconciled with the current regulation at 28 C.F.R. § 541.3. Sanctions A through E can only be imposed or suspended by the DHO. The Unit Discipline Committee is limited to F through M, and § 541.7(f) bars it from imposing “loss of good conduct time credit, FSA Time Credits, disciplinary segregation, or monetary fines.”

The sanctions that change with severity level

Letter	Greatest (100)	High (200)	Moderate (300)	Low (400)
A. Recommend parole date rescission or retardation	Available	Available	Available	Not listed
B. Forfeit and/or withhold earned statutory good time or non-vested good conduct time, and/or terminate or disallow extra good time (may not be suspended)	Up to 100%	Up to 50% or up to 60 days, whichever is less	Up to 25% or up to 30 days, whichever is less	Not listed
B.1 Disallow good conduct time credit available for the year (may not be suspended)	Ordinarily between 50% and 75% (27–41 days)	Ordinarily between 25% and 50% (14–27 days)	Ordinarily up to 25% (1–14 days)	Ordinarily up to 12.5% (1–7 days) on a second violation of the same act within 6 months; ordinarily up to 25% (1–14 days) on a third
B.2 Forfeit earned First Step Act Time Credits (added to the regulation effective 19 January 2022; not in the 2011 Program Statement)	Up to 41 days for each prohibited act committed	Up to 27 days for each prohibited act committed	Up to 27 days for each prohibited act committed	Up to 7 days on a second violation of the same act within 6 months; up to 14 days on a third
C. Disciplinary segregation	Up to 12 months	Up to 6 months	Up to 3 months	Not listed

The sanctions that are the same at every level

Letter	Sanction	Greatest	High	Moderate	Low
D.	Make monetary restitution	Available	Available	Available	Available
E.	Monetary fine	Available	Available	Available	Available
F.	Loss of privileges (e.g., visiting, telephone, commissary, movies, recreation)	Available	Available	Available	Available
G.	Change housing (quarters)	Available	Available	Available	Available
H.	Remove from program and/or group activity	Available	Available	Available	Available
I.	Loss of job	Available	Available	Available	Available
J.	Impound inmate’s personal property	Available	Available	Available	Available
K.	Confiscate contraband	Available	Available	Available	Available
L.	Restrict to quarters	Available	Available	Available	Available
M.	Extra duty	Available	Available	Available	Available

Three structural rules sit on top of this menu, all from PS 5270.09 at pp. 10–12. At the Greatest level the DHO “imposes one or more of sanctions A through E” and may add any of A through M. At the High level the DHO imposes one or more of A through M and may suspend some of them. At Moderate and Low, where the UDC handles the case, it “shall impose at least one sanction F through M, but may suspend any sanctions imposed.” And across every level, “[s]uspensions of any sanction cannot exceed six months,” and a suspended sanction can be revoked and executed only if you are found to have committed a later prohibited act.

For the complete list of prohibited acts and the repeat-offense escalation table, see our page on federal prison rules and discipline.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The most useful thing you can do in the first hours after receiving a shot costs nothing: write down, in your own hand and dated, exactly what happened, who was present, what cameras faced the area, and what you asked staff for. Under PS 5270.09 at p. 20, if you request exculpatory evidence such as video or audio surveillance, “the investigator must make every effort to review and preserve the evidence” — and the Program Statement goes further, saying it “would also be prudent for the investigator to review and preserve” it even without a request. Institution video is typically overwritten on a short cycle. A preservation request made at the investigation stage, in writing, is the difference between having footage and arguing about footage.

The forms in a disciplinary packet

Appendix A of PS 5270.09 (at p. 38) lists the complete form set for the discipline process. Knowing the numbers lets you ask for a specific document rather than a vague “my paperwork.”

Form	What it is	When it appears
BP-A0288	Incident Report	At the start — the charging document
BP-A0293	Inmate Rights at Discipline Hearing	Before a DHO hearing
BP-A0294	Notice of Discipline Hearing Before the Discipline Hearing Officer (DHO)	Before a DHO hearing — this is the 24-hour written notice
BP-A0306	Duties of Staff Representative	When a staff representative is assigned
BP-A0307	Waiver of Appearance	If you waive appearing before the UDC or DHO
BP-A0304	Discipline Hearing Officer (DHO) Report	After the hearing — the written decision

Two related forms sit outside the discipline packet but matter to what follows. Placement in a Special Housing Unit is documented on BP-A0292, Special Housing Unit Record, and reviewed on BP-A0295, Special Housing Review, per PS 5270.12 at p. 10. And where the Warden imposes more restrictive conditions on someone in administrative detention pending a hearing, PS 5270.12 at p. 7 requires the status to be “reviewed and fully documented on a BP-A0321, Special Housing Unit — Temporary Restrictive Housing Order, every five days.”

The Bureau posts the incident report form publicly; our explainer on Form BP-A0288 reproduces it. It does not post the BP-9, BP-10 or BP-11 administrative remedy forms — those are distributed inside institutions, which is why a family member cannot download one and mail it in.

The timeline, and the two clocks that stop

Appendix B of PS 5270.09 (at p. 39) reduces the whole system to four steps and three intervals. The regulation supplies the numbers.

Stage	Deadline	Where it comes from
Staff become aware of your alleged involvement, or the report is released after a prosecution referral	Day zero	PS 5270.09 at p. 39
Incident report delivered to you	Ordinarily a maximum of 24 hours	§ 541.5(a)
Investigating Officer appointed	Ordinarily within 24 hours of the report	PS 5270.09 at p. 19
Investigation completed	Ordinarily within 24 hours of the appointment	PS 5270.09 at p. 19
UDC initial review	Ordinarily a maximum of 5 work days from the time staff became aware, excluding the day of awareness, weekends and holidays; any extension requires the Warden’s written approval	§ 541.7(c)
Written notice of DHO hearing	Minimum 24 hours before the hearing, unless waived	§ 541.8(c)
DHO written report delivered	Ordinarily within 15 work days of the decision	PS 5270.09 at p. 35
Appeal to the Regional Director (DHO) or Warden (UDC)	20 calendar days	§ 542.14

Clock one stops for criminal referral. PS 5270.09 at p. 19 provides that when it appears the incident may involve criminal prosecution, “the investigating officer suspends the investigation. Staff may not question the inmate until the FBI or other investigative agency releases the incident report for administrative processing. The incident report should then be delivered to the inmate by the end of the next business day.” The five-day UDC clock “starts when the incident report is released for administrative processing.” This is why a report can arrive months after the underlying event without any timing violation at all.

Clock two stops for informal resolution. Staff may suspend proceedings “up to two calendar weeks while informal resolution is undertaken,” and if it fails, “the time requirements then restart at the point at which they were suspended.”

Everything in the table is prefaced by ordinarily. These are the Bureau’s own targets, and a missed one is not by itself a defense. It is a documented departure from policy to raise on appeal, and it is far more persuasive when paired with a substantive problem in the finding.

Informal resolution: the option most people do not know they have

Under § 541.5(b)(3), an incident report “may be informally resolved at any stage of the disciplinary process, except for prohibited acts in the Greatest and High severity levels,” and — this is the sentence that matters — “[i]f the incident report is informally resolved, it will be removed from your records.”

PS 5270.09 at p. 21 spells out the mechanics. The Bureau “encourages informal resolution of incidents.” Greatest (100-level) and High (200-level) acts may not be informally resolved and must go to the DHO. Moderate (300-level) and Low (400-level) offenses can be informally resolved at any stage. A record of the informal resolution stays in SENTRY, “[h]owever, the incident report is not filed in the inmate’s central file.”

Two limits are worth naming honestly. First, “[w]hile informal resolution requires the consent of both staff and inmate to be successful, the determination to informally resolve an incident report is solely at the discretion of staff.” You cannot demand it. Second, staff must write the report before starting informal resolution “so the facts of the incident will be preserved if informal resolution is not successful” — so asking for informal resolution does not make the paperwork go away in the meantime.

Given what a 300- or 400-series entry in the central file does downstream — to custody classification points, to housing, to work detail, and to the repeat-offense escalation table — an informally resolved report is worth more than most people appreciate at the time it is offered.

What the investigator must do, and what happens with your statement

The investigation stage is short, and it is the only point in the process where the record is still being built rather than reviewed.

Under § 541.5(b)(1), the investigator “will specifically inform you” of the charges and of the right to remain silent with the adverse-inference warning. Under § 541.5(b)(2), when the investigator asks for your statement, “you may give an explanation of the incident, request any witnesses be interviewed, or request that other evidence be obtained and reviewed.”

Note the asymmetry. You may request that witnesses be interviewed at this stage, but PS 5270.09 at p. 20 says an inmate “may not identify or request any witnesses at this stage of the discipline process” in the formal sense that applies at a DHO hearing — though “the investigator should interview any witnesses to the incident (and victims, if applicable) to record their statements.” Formal witness requests belong at the DHO hearing, through you or your staff representative.

The investigator must talk to people with direct and relevant information, summarize their statements, record the disposition of evidence, and — where practicable — investigate “the inmate’s statements offering a rationale for his/her conduct or for the charges against him/her.”

Urinalysis cases have their own rule. Where someone claims a positive result came from permissible medication or a combination of medications, the investigator “must contact Health Services staff to determine if the inmate is receiving medication that contains the compound found in the urinalysis,” must confirm authorization for combinations, and where necessary must contact the testing laboratory about a possible false positive. But the Program Statement is unambiguous that “the validity of the testing process is not at issue,” because neither the investigator nor the DHO “has the experience to assess the accuracy of the laboratory process.” Our page on drug testing and urine surveillance covers the testing rules themselves.

What happens after a finding, and how it follows you

A disciplinary finding does not end at the hearing. It is recorded, it is filed, and it is read by people making later decisions.

The DHO enters the outcome into SENTRY’s Chronological Disciplinary Record, and “[a] record of the hearing and supporting documents are kept in the inmate central file” (PS 5270.09 at p. 35). If the DHO expunges a report, unit staff must ensure the central file no longer contains it or its related documents.

There is a protective rule most people never hear about, at PS 5270.09 at pp. 35–36. References to significant prohibited acts “that are not supported by disciplinary actions and hearings may not be used by the Bureau in ways that have an adverse impact on an inmate, specifically the forfeiture or disallowance of good time, good conduct time, or a parole recommendation.” Such references may be kept for classification and transfer decisions only if they are “maintained accurately” — the Program Statement’s own example is that someone suspected of an escape attempt but never charged for lack of evidence “would have to have the lack of evidence noted in any reference.” And placing a reference to an unsupported 100- or 200-level allegation in a central file “may only be done with the written approval of the Warden of the institution where the incident occurred,” documented in the file.

Findings also feed the classification system. PS 5270.09 at p. 12 notes that not every finding changes a security designation score, but “the Unit Team may recommend a greater security transfer, using their professional judgment.” That is how a disciplinary problem becomes a housing problem. See our explainers on security designation and custody classification and federal prison security levels.

Where a segregation sanction is imposed, 28 C.F.R. § 541.26 requires the Segregation Review Official to formally review your status “[w]ithin seven continuous calendar days” at a hearing you can attend, then every seven days thereafter, with a further formal hearing you may attend “[a]fter every 30 calendar days of continuous placement.” PS 5270.12 at p. 10 adds that a multidisciplinary team including the Executive Team, Captain, Unit Managers, Case Management Coordinator, Health Services Administrator and Chief Psychologist “meets weekly” to review the SHU population.

How to appeal

Both a UDC decision and a DHO decision are appealed through the Administrative Remedy Program at 28 C.F.R. part 542, subpart B — but they start at different places, and getting this wrong costs weeks.

A UDC decision is appealed first to the Warden on a BP-9. The deadline is 20 calendar days: § 542.14(a) sets “[t]he deadline for completion of informal resolution and submission of a formal written Administrative Remedy Request, on the appropriate form (BP-9)” at “20 calendar days following the date on which the basis for the Request occurred.”

A DHO decision skips the institution entirely. Section 542.14(d)(2) provides that “DHO appeals shall be submitted initially to the Regional Director for the region where the inmate is currently located.” From there, § 542.15(a) gives 30 calendar days from the date the Regional Director signed the response to appeal on a BP-11 to the General Counsel, and “[a]ppeal to the General Counsel is the final administrative appeal.”

Two filing mechanics reject more appeals than any substantive rule. First, one incident report per form: § 542.14(c)(2) requires that “[f]or DHO and UDC appeals, each separate incident report number must be appealed on a separate form.” Bundling two shots onto one BP-10 gets the submission rejected and returned without a response. Second, a late filing is not always fatal. Section 542.14(b) permits an extension “[w]here the inmate demonstrates a valid reason for delay,” and lists examples that describe exactly the situations people actually face: “an extended period in-transit during which the inmate was separated from documents needed to prepare the Request or Appeal; an extended period of time during which the inmate was physically incapable of preparing a Request or Appeal; an unusually long period taken for informal resolution attempts.” If you were on a transfer, in a hospital, or waiting on requested copies, say so in writing and cite the reason.

What the reviewing official actually asks is set out at PS 5270.09 at p. 36: whether the UDC or DHO substantially complied with the discipline regulations; whether the decision was based on facts; if there was conflicting evidence, whether the decision rested on the greater weight of it; and whether the sanction was appropriate to the severity level and the circumstances. The official “is limited to determining if the UDC or DHO could have rationally concluded that the evidence supports the decision, not necessarily whether the reviewing official would have made the same decision.”

Two rules work in your favor. A reviewing official “may not increase a valid sanction” — appealing cannot make the outcome worse. And “[t]he investigator, UDC members, DHO, reporting officer, or staff representative may not investigate or help prepare the response to administrative appeals from UDC or DHO actions.”

Exhausting these steps is not optional if a court is the eventual destination. The Prison Litigation Reform Act at 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a) bars any action about prison conditions “until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted,” and in Ross v. Blake, 578 U.S. 632 (2016), the Supreme Court held that this mandatory language “forecloses judicial discretion” and leaves no room for judge-made “special circumstances” exceptions — while confirming that a remedy is not “available” where it is a dead end, is so opaque that no ordinary prisoner can navigate it, or where officials thwart its use “through machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation.” Our pages on prison grievances and the Administrative Remedy Program walk the filing steps in detail.

Frequently Asked Questions About Incident Reports

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