| Program Statement | 5112.01 |
|---|---|
| Subject | Administration of Sentence for Military Inmates |
| Current edition | May 7, 2026 |
| Change notices | None |
| Supersedes | PS 5110.16 Administration of Sentence for Military Inmates (9/13/2011) — rescinded, and renumbered from the 5110 series to 5112.01 |
| Governing statute | 10 U.S.C. § 858 (Art. 58, UCMJ — Execution of confinement) |
| Governing regulation | None cited in the Program Statement |
| Related BP forms | BP-A0291 Furlough Application – Approval and Record; BP-A0380 Good Time Record; BP-A0522 Supervision Release Plan; BP-A0714 Notice of Release and Arrival |
| Official PDF | https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5112_001.pdf |
Checked against the BOP policy set · 2026-09-07 · How we verify
A small number of people sentenced by court-martial serve their confinement in Bureau of Prisons institutions rather than in military facilities, under an agreement in which the Bureau accepts up to 500 military inmates from the Army. Program Statement 5112.01 is the Bureau’s instruction for administering those sentences — and its central rule is one most families never hear: the Bureau does not compute a military sentence and cannot correct one. If you are trying to challenge how time is being counted, read this together with challenging a BOP sentence computation, because the route for a military sentence is different from the ordinary federal route. For the broader question of how the Bureau treats people with military service, see inmate veterans.
This statement was reissued on 7 May 2026, replacing a 2011 edition. That makes it one of the most current Program Statements in the Bureau’s inventory, and no competing page reflects the change.
The rule itself: military inmates
Two things on this page are worth reading verbatim. The first is the sentence-computation rule, which decides who fixes a mistake. The second is the form set, because one of the four forms exists here only to say that it is not used.
Section 4 — Sentence Computation
“Military sentence computations are provided by the Records Office, U.S. Army Disciplinary Barracks (USDB), Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The DSCC must accept the sentence computation provided by military authorities and refer suspected errors or challenges made by the inmate to the military records office for resolution.
Since the Bureau must accept a sentence computation provided by the military, a BP-A0380, Good Time Record form is not maintained for military inmates.
a. Military Good Time (MGT). A Discipline Hearing Officer may recommend forfeiture, disallowance, or restoration of MGT.
Unit Management staff forward recommendations concerning MGT to military authorities when reports are generated for clemency reviews. If any action occurs because of the recommendation, military authorities recompute the sentence and provide a copy to the DSCC.
Unit Management staff forward a recommendation for forfeiture, disallowance, or restoration of MGT received after the last clemency review to the appropriate military authority and provide a copy to the DSCC.
b. Military Abatement Good Time (MAGT). This is an award from the military for work performance. Unit Management forwards any such recommendation to the military authority in the same manner outlined above.”
Reproduced from Program Statement 5112.01 at pp. 2–3, verified against the original PDF.
Read that first paragraph twice. “The DSCC must accept the sentence computation provided by military authorities and refer suspected errors or challenges made by the inmate to the military records office for resolution.” The DSCC is the Bureau’s Designation and Sentence Computation Center in Grand Prairie, Texas — the office that computes every ordinary federal sentence. For a military inmate it does not compute anything; it takes the number the Army’s Records Office at Fort Leavenworth gives it, and if you say that number is wrong, its instructed response is to forward your challenge to the military, not to resolve it.
Three consequences follow directly from that paragraph, and they are the whole practical point of this policy:
- A Bureau administrative remedy will not change a military computation. The Bureau has no authority to change it and its own policy tells staff to refer the question elsewhere. That does not make a remedy filing useless — it is often how you get the referral documented — but a BP-9 asking the warden to recalculate a court-martial sentence is asking for something the warden’s own policy says he does not do.
- There is no Good Time Record for you. The BP-A0380 is the form the Bureau uses to track statutory good time on old-law federal sentences. The Program Statement says one “is not maintained for military inmates,” because the good-time figures come from the military and not from the Bureau.
- A disciplinary finding inside a Bureau prison can still cost you military good time — indirectly. A Discipline Hearing Officer “may recommend” forfeiture, disallowance or restoration of Military Good Time. The DHO does not take it; the recommendation travels to military authorities, and if they act on it, “military authorities recompute the sentence and provide a copy to the DSCC.”
The four forms, and what each one does
| Form (as named in the Program Statement’s References) | What PS 5112.01 says about it |
|---|---|
| BP-A0380 Good Time Record | “a BP-A0380, Good Time Record form is not maintained for military inmates” (p. 2) |
| BP-A0714 Notice of Release and Arrival | “For military inmates being released from Bureau custody or detaining authority, the Bureau will forward a copy of the BP-A0714, Notice of Release and Arrival form to the USDB.” (p. 3) |
| BP-A0522 Supervision Release Plan | “For military inmates releasing to a halfway house or to home detention, Bureau staff will forward a copy of the military inmate’s BP-A0522, Supervision Release Plan and BP-A0291, Furlough Application – Approval and Record to the USDB as notification of the transfer.” (p. 3) |
| BP-A0291 Furlough Application – Approval and Record | Same sentence as above — forwarded to the USDB, together with the BP-A0522, as notification of a transfer to a halfway house or home detention |
Form names reproduced verbatim from the References section of Program Statement 5112.01 at p. 4; the quoted descriptions from pp. 2–3.
The pattern in that table is worth naming: every form in this policy is a notification to Fort Leavenworth. The Army does not lose track of a military prisoner because the Bureau is housing them. Release, halfway house, home detention — each generates paper that goes back to the USDB.
On this page
How the rest of it works
Who this applies to
The Program Statement defines the population by route, not by service branch:
“This program statement is intended to implement the current agreement between the Bureau of Prisons (Bureau) and the Department of the Army (DA) in which the Bureau agreed to accept and permanently maintain up to 500 military inmates from the DA. The Army will receive inmates from the other branches of the military for transfer into Bureau custody as part of this agreement.”
and
“For the purposes of this program statement, the term ‘military inmate’ refers to all military prisoners received from the U.S. Army pursuant to the current agreement, regardless of Service affiliation.”
(PS 5112.01 at pp. 1–2.)
So a sailor, an airman or a Marine reaches the Bureau through the Army. 500 is a ceiling on the agreement, not a population count — the Program Statement states what the Bureau agreed to accept and maintain, and says nothing about how many people are actually held under it at any time. We do not have a current figure and do not print one.
The Program Statement states two program objectives (PS 5112.01 at p. 2): “Sentence computations for military sentences will be accurate,” and “Military inmates will receive the same discipline and treatment as other Bureau inmates.” It requires no institution supplement.
Designation
“Referrals of military inmates for classification and acceptance into Bureau custody are made to the Designation and Sentence Computation Center (DSCC) team responsible for the Military Court of Jurisdiction (COJ)” (PS 5112.01 at p. 2). There is a dedicated DSCC team for military cases, keyed to the military court of jurisdiction rather than to a federal district. Ordinary designation factors still apply once the person is in the system — see security designation and custody classification.
Treatment and discipline
“Military inmates transferred to Bureau custody are subject to the same treatment and discipline as other Bureau inmates in accordance with 10 U.S.C. § 858” (PS 5112.01 at p. 2).
That statutory citation is exact, and it is the legal foundation for everything on this page. Article 58 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice provides that a court-martial sentence of confinement “may be carried into execution by confinement in any place of confinement under the control of any of the armed forces or in any penal or correctional institution under the control of the United States, or which the United States may be allowed to use,” and that “[p]ersons so confined in a penal or correctional institution not under the control of one of the armed forces are subject to the same discipline and treatment as persons confined or committed by the courts of the United States or of the State, District of Columbia, or place in which the institution is situated.”
Note which direction that runs. The statute binds; the Program Statement instructs. Congress said a court-martialed person housed in a federal prison is subject to the same discipline and treatment as everyone else there. The Bureau’s policy repeats it. In practice that means the ordinary inmate discipline program, the ordinary administrative remedy program, the ordinary visiting, correspondence and medical policies. There is no separate military disciplinary track inside a Bureau institution.
Clemency
“Military inmates continue to be eligible for clemency consideration from their respective branches of service. The Bureau honors clemency actions and subsequent sentence computations issued by military authorities.”
(PS 5112.01 at p. 3.)
This is a second, entirely separate relief track from the presidential clemency process that applies to civilian federal sentences. It runs through the service branch, not through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, and the Bureau’s role is to honor the result — including any recomputation that follows. The Bureau’s own petition for commutation of sentence procedure governs the civilian route.
The clemency review is also the moment at which Military Good Time recommendations move. Unit Management forwards MGT recommendations to military authorities “when reports are generated for clemency reviews,” and any recommendation arriving after the last review is forwarded separately (PS 5112.01 at p. 2). So the progress report prepared for a clemency review is doing double duty here — it is the vehicle by which good-time recommendations reach the branch.
Release and supervision
This is the section the 2026 reissue rewrote. It now reads:
“For military inmates being released from Bureau custody or detaining authority, the Bureau will forward a copy of the BP-A0714, Notice of Release and Arrival form to the USDB. For military inmates releasing to a halfway house or to home detention, Bureau staff will forward a copy of the military inmate’s BP-A0522, Supervision Release Plan and BP-A0291, Furlough Application – Approval and Record to the USDB as notification of the transfer. Military inmates being released to supervision shall be supervised by a U.S. Probation Officer.
The U.S. Probation Office in the district of release supervises all inmates released by action of the C&PB.
Military inmates released on parole or those who are releasing to supervision are subject to the same C&PB rules and regulations until the expiration of their sentences.”
(PS 5112.01 at p. 3.)
Three separate propositions there, and they should not be collapsed. A U.S. Probation Officer does the supervising — in the district of release, including for people released by action of a Clemency and Parole Board. But the rules being supervised against are the military board’s, and they run “until the expiration of their sentences.” A person on military parole is therefore in an unusual position: a federal probation officer in their home district, applying a military board’s conditions.
That structure — military board sets the terms, U.S. Probation supervises — is what the Summary of Changes describes as reflecting “current U.S. Department of War regulations allowing military inmates to be supervised by the Military Departments’ Clemency and Parole Boards (C&PB).”
What changed from PS 5110.16 to 5112.01
PS 5112.01 rescinded PS 5110.16 (9/13/2011) and renumbered the policy. Its Summary of Changes lists exactly two items:
“Program Statement Rescinded:
- 5110.16 Administration of Sentence for Military Inmates (9/13/2011) Changes:
- Updates the ‘Release and Supervision’ section to reflect current U.S. Department of War regulations allowing military inmates to be supervised by the Military Departments’ Clemency and Parole Boards (C&PB).
- Updates the program statement number from 5110.16 to 5112.01.”
(PS 5112.01 at p. 1.)
The renumbering is not cosmetic for anyone searching. Fourteen and a half years of case notes, filings and reference material cite “PS 5110.16.” That number now returns nothing — the superseded PDF is no longer served from bop.gov, and it is not in the Bureau’s published superseded set either. If a document you are relying on cites PS 5110.16, it is citing a rescinded statement, and the current text is at 5112.01.
About the phrase “Department of War.” The Bureau’s Summary of Changes uses it, and we quote the Bureau verbatim. The underlying authority is Executive Order 14347 of September 5, 2025, “Restoring the United States Department of War” (90 FR 43893), which authorizes “Department of War” and “Secretary of War” as additional secondary titles usable “in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch.” The order is explicit about its own limits: “Statutory references to the Department of Defense, Secretary of Defense, and subordinate officers and components shall remain controlling until changed subsequently by the law,” and it directs the Secretary to recommend the legislative and executive actions a permanent renaming would require. So the Bureau’s usage is authorized, but it is a secondary title — anything citing a statute should still cite the Department of Defense as Congress wrote it.
What we could not check. We attempted to retrieve PS 5110.16 to compare its Release and Supervision section with the new one. https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5110_016.pdf returns a 404, the statement is absent from the Bureau’s published superseded set, and it is not in the policy mirror we work from. So we can report what the Bureau says changed, and we can print the new text, but we cannot show you the old text side by side, and we do not guess at it.
The 2026 reissue wave, for context. The Bureau updated or added 23 Program Statements effective 22 June 2026 and reissued dozens more between February and May 2026. PS 5112.01 belongs to that wave, at 7 May 2026.
Where military inmates get stuck on sentence computation
“The Bureau says my sentence is computed wrong and won’t fix it”
They are correct that they will not fix it, and the policy says why: the DSCC “must accept the sentence computation provided by military authorities and refer suspected errors or challenges made by the inmate to the military records office for resolution” (PS 5112.01 at p. 2).
The route. Start by getting the computation in writing — ask your case manager on a BP-A0148 Inmate Request to Staff for the sentence computation the DSCC received and the date it was received. Then direct the substantive challenge to the Records Office at the U.S. Army Disciplinary Barracks, Fort Leavenworth, which is the office the policy names. A parallel Bureau administrative remedy is still worth filing — not because the warden can recompute, but because it creates a dated record that the challenge was made and that the referral was or was not sent. Where the challenge is genuinely about federal law rather than the military computation, a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the district of confinement is the usual vehicle, and that is a decision for counsel on your record.
A DHO took good time — or seemed to
A Discipline Hearing Officer in a Bureau institution can find you guilty of a prohibited act and impose sanctions. What the DHO cannot do here is take Military Good Time; PS 5112.01 says only that a DHO “may recommend forfeiture, disallowance, or restoration of MGT,” and that Unit Management forwards the recommendation to military authorities (PS 5112.01 at p. 2).
The route. The disciplinary finding itself is challenged the ordinary way — through the DHO appeal and the administrative remedy chain, on the inmate discipline program rules. Separately, ask in writing whether an MGT recommendation was forwarded, to whom, and on what date. Those are two different fights with two different decision-makers, and running them together is the most common mistake we see.
The paperwork went to Fort Leavenworth and nobody told the family
Every form in this policy is a notification to the USDB. Nothing in the Program Statement directs any notification to the person’s family, and nothing directs a copy to the person themselves.
The route. Ask for copies. The BP-A0522 Supervision Release Plan and the BP-A0291 Furlough Application are documents about your own release, and the ordinary central file disclosure rules apply to the disclosable portions. Where the Bureau will not produce a document, the FOIA and Privacy Act route follows — and note that records held by the Army are requested from the Army, not from the Bureau.
Two supervision systems, one person
A military inmate released to supervision has a U.S. Probation Officer but may be subject to a Clemency and Parole Board’s rules “until the expiration of their sentences.” Conditions can therefore come from a source your probation officer did not write and cannot waive.
The route. Before release, get both sets in writing: the conditions in the court-martial record and any C&PB order, and whatever the U.S. Probation Office in the district of release will be enforcing. Reconciling them is a legal question and belongs with counsel well before the release date, not after a first violation allegation. Our page on early termination of supervised release covers the civilian analogue; the military parole track is different and should not be assumed to work the same way.
Related BOP policy on military inmates
- Inmate Veterans — the Bureau’s programming for people with military service, which is a separate policy from this one and applies to many more people
- Security Designation and Custody Classification — how a military inmate is placed once accepted
- Sentence Computation Manual and Sentence Computation — Old Law — how the Bureau computes the sentences it does compute, for contrast
- Good Conduct Time — the federal analogue to Military Good Time, and why the BP-A0380 exists at all
- Inmate Discipline Program — the DHO process that generates MGT recommendations
- Progress Reports — the reports generated for clemency review, which carry MGT recommendations to the service branch
- Furloughs — the BP-A0291 in its ordinary use
- Halfway House Placement Procedures and Home Confinement — the two placements that trigger the BP-A0522 and BP-A0291 notifications
- Petition for Commutation of Sentence — the civilian clemency route, distinct from service-branch clemency
- Release Notification Requirements — the separate notifications that go to civilian law enforcement on release
For the wider picture, see our federal prison early release hub and the BOP policy library.
Frequently Asked Questions About Military Inmates
Can someone sentenced by court-martial serve time in a federal prison?
Yes. 10 U.S.C. § 858 provides that a court-martial sentence of confinement “may be carried into execution by confinement in any place of confinement under the control of any of the armed forces or in any penal or correctional institution under the control of the United States.” Program Statement 5112.01 implements an agreement under which the Bureau accepts up to 500 military inmates from the Department of the Army, and the Army receives prisoners from the other branches for transfer under that agreement.
Who computes a military inmate’s sentence?
The Army, not the Bureau. Program Statement 5112.01 at p. 2 states that “military sentence computations are provided by the Records Office, U.S. Army Disciplinary Barracks (USDB), Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,” and that the Bureau’s Designation and Sentence Computation Center “must accept the sentence computation provided by military authorities and refer suspected errors or challenges made by the inmate to the military records office for resolution.”
How do I challenge a military sentence computation?
Through the military records office, not through the Bureau. The Program Statement instructs the DSCC to refer “suspected errors or challenges made by the inmate to the military records office for resolution” (PS 5112.01 at p. 2), so a Bureau administrative remedy asking the warden to recompute is asking for something Bureau policy says the Bureau does not do. Filing one anyway can be useful to document the request and the referral, and where the dispute turns on federal law rather than the military computation, counsel may consider a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the district of confinement.
What is Military Good Time, and can a BOP disciplinary hearing take it?
Military Good Time (MGT) is the military analogue to federal statutory good time; Military Abatement Good Time (MAGT) is described in the Program Statement as “an award from the military for work performance.” A Bureau Discipline Hearing Officer cannot take either. Under PS 5112.01 at p. 2 a DHO “may recommend forfeiture, disallowance, or restoration of MGT,” Unit Management forwards the recommendation to military authorities, and if they act, “military authorities recompute the sentence and provide a copy to the DSCC.”
Do military inmates get a BP-A0380 Good Time Record?
No. Program Statement 5112.01 at p. 2 states that “since the Bureau must accept a sentence computation provided by the military, a BP-A0380, Good Time Record form is not maintained for military inmates.” The good-time figures come from the Army’s records office rather than from the Bureau, so the Bureau does not keep its own version.
Are military inmates still eligible for military clemency?
Yes. The Program Statement at p. 3 states that “military inmates continue to be eligible for clemency consideration from their respective branches of service,” and that “the Bureau honors clemency actions and subsequent sentence computations issued by military authorities.” That is a separate route from the presidential clemency process that governs civilian federal sentences, and it runs through the service branch.
Who supervises a military inmate after release?
A U.S. Probation Officer, in the district of release. PS 5112.01 at p. 3 states that “military inmates being released to supervision shall be supervised by a U.S. Probation Officer” and that “the U.S. Probation Office in the district of release supervises all inmates released by action of the C&PB.” But the same paragraph adds that people released on parole or to supervision “are subject to the same C&PB rules and regulations until the expiration of their sentences” — so the officer is federal while some of the conditions may come from a military Clemency and Parole Board.
Why does the Program Statement say “Department of War”?
Because the Bureau adopted the secondary title authorized by Executive Order 14347 of September 5, 2025 (90 FR 43893), which permits the Department of Defense to be referred to as the Department of War “in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch.” The order also states that “statutory references to the Department of Defense, Secretary of Defense, and subordinate officers and components shall remain controlling until changed subsequently by the law” — so the usage is a naming convention, not a change in any statute.
Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026