Notification Requirements Upon Release of Sex Offenders, Violent Offenders, and Drug Traffickers

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

Program Statement	5110.17
Subject	Notification Requirements Upon Release of Sex Offenders, Violent Offenders, and Drug Traffickers
Current edition	May 16, 2014
Change notices	None
Supersedes	P5141.02 Sex Offender Notification and Registration (12/14/98) and P5110.15 Notification of Release to State and Local Law Enforcement Officials (8/30/00) — integrated into one statement
Governing statute	18 U.S.C. § 4042(b) (drug trafficking crimes and crimes of violence) and § 4042(c) (sex offender release and registration information)
Governing regulation	None. The Program Statement’s References section cites no 28 C.F.R. provision; the binding authority here is the statute, not a Bureau regulation
Related BP forms	BP-A0710 Prisoner Release Notification; BP-A0648 Sex Offender Registration and Treatment Notification
Official PDF	https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5110_017.pdf

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

Before the Bureau of Prisons releases certain people to supervision, it mails a written notice to law enforcement agencies where that person will live — and Congress requires that notice to arrive at least five calendar days before release. Program Statement 5110.17 is the Bureau’s internal instruction for doing that: who gets flagged, which agencies get a letter, which two forms carry the information, and what staff must tell the person before they walk out the door. If you are trying to understand the broader machinery of leaving federal prison — computation, halfway house, home confinement, supervision — start at our federal prison early release hub and use this page for the notification piece specifically.

One thing this page will not do. It describes what the Bureau notifies and what the Bureau must tell you. It does not tell you whether you must register anywhere after release, whether notification will be made in your case, or when you will be released. Registration duties come from the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act and from the law of the jurisdiction where you actually live, and they are a question for your lawyer, not for a policy page.

The rule itself: release notification

Program Statement 5110.17 turns the statute into a set of SENTRY case-management assignments. Each person in Bureau custody gets at least one. The assignment in your central file is what tells unit staff whether a notification letter goes out, and to whom. This is the table.

The SENTRY notification assignments

ASSIGNMENT	DESCRIPTION	GROUP CODE
V94 CVB913	V94 CURR VIOL BEFORE 91394 — Currently convicted for a crime of violence with date of offense before September 13, 1994. Refer to Section 3 of the Program Statement Categorization of Offenses to determine whether a Federal offense may be considered a “crime of violence.”	VVB
V94 CVA913	V94 CURR VIOL ON/AFTER 91394 — Currently convicted for a crime of violence with date of offense on or after September 13, 1994. Refer to Section 3 of the Program Statement Categorization of Offenses to determine whether a Federal offense may be considered a “crime of violence.”	VVA
V94 PV	PAST VIOLENCE — Previously convicted for a crime of violence, regardless of the date of offense.	VVP
V94 PV5	V94 PAST VIOL-NO NOTIF HSED5TH — Previously convicted for a crime of violence, regardless of the date of offense, and housed in an institution in the Fifth Circuit. Notifications are prohibited per Henrikson.	VVP
V94 CDB913	V94 CURR DRG TRAF BEFORE 91394 — Currently convicted for a drug trafficking crime with date of offense before September 13, 1994.	VDB
V94 CDA913	V94 CURR DRG TRAF ON/AFT 91394 — Currently convicted for a drug trafficking charge with date of offense on or after September 13, 1994.	VDA
V94 PD	V94 PAST DRUG TRAFFICKING — Previously convicted for a Federal drug trafficking crime, regardless of offense date.	VDP
V94 PD 5	V94 PAST DRG-NO NOTIF HSED 5TH — Previously convicted for a Federal drug trafficking crime, regardless of offense date, and housed in an institution in the Fifth Circuit. Notifications are prohibited per Henrikson.	VDP
V94 COB913	V94 CURR OTHER BEFORE 91394 — Currently convicted for an offense that is not drug trafficking or a crime of violence. The date of offense is before September 13, 1994.	VOB
V94 COA913	V94 CURR OTHER ON/AFTER 91394 — Currently convicted for an offense that is not drug trafficking or a crime of violence. The date of offense is on or after September 13, 1994.	VOA

The statement adds a note immediately after the two “current violence” rows:

“Note. Inmates categorized as having a ‘Director’s Discretion’-type offense (Section 4, Categorization of Offenses), do not require, and should not be processed for, notification of a violent offense. (However, if the inmate also has a drug or sex offense, or prior violent offense, relevant notification should be processed accordingly.)”

Reproduced from Program Statement 5110.17 at pp. 14–15, verified against the original PDF.

Three things a reader should take from that table before going further. First, every person gets an assignment, including the two “OTHER” codes for people whose current offense is neither drug trafficking nor violence — the absence of a notification trigger is itself recorded. Second, the date September 13, 1994 is the enactment date of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, and the codes distinguish offenses before and after it. Third, two of the ten codes exist only to suppress a notification: V94 PV5 and V94 PD 5 mark people housed in the Fifth Circuit whose trigger is a prior conviction, where notification is prohibited. That is explained below.

What the notification letter must contain

The second artifact worth having in front of you is the required content of the BP-A0710, the Prisoner Release Notification. The Program Statement states:

“The Prisoner Release Notification (BP-A0710) must contain the following information for all inmates:

• Offender’s name.
• Criminal history. For each conviction of a crime of violence, Federal drug trafficking crime, or sexual offense, include a succinct description of that crime to the extent descriptive information is available. Copies of the PSI must not be used to provide criminal history information.
• Final release date.
• Offender’s projected address.
• Release conditions or restrictions (any restrictions on conduct or other conditions to the release of the prisoner imposed by the sentencing court other than the Standard Conditions of Supervision on the JCC.
• Information that the individual is subject to registration as a sex offender as required by SORNA.”

Reproduced from Program Statement 5110.17 at p. 13. The unclosed parenthesis in the fifth bullet appears in the Bureau’s own text.

That list maps almost exactly onto the statute. Under 18 U.S.C. § 4042(b)(2), a notice “shall disclose— (A) the prisoner’s name; (B) the prisoner’s criminal history, including a description of the offense of which the prisoner was convicted; and (C) any restrictions on conduct or other conditions to the release of the prisoner that are imposed by law, the sentencing court, or the Bureau of Prisons or any other Federal agency.” For sex-offense notifications, § 4042(c)(2) adds “the place where the person will reside, and the information that the person shall register as required by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.”

One line in the Bureau’s list has no statutory counterpart and matters in practice: “Copies of the PSI must not be used to provide criminal history information.” Staff are told to write a description, not to forward the presentence report. If a presentence investigation report has been mailed out with a release notification, that is a departure from the Bureau’s own instruction and a specific, documentable thing to raise.

The two forms, as they are actually printed

Both forms are published by the Bureau, and both are worth reading before you are asked to sign anything. We downloaded and read each one on 7 September 2026.

BP-A0710, Prisoner Release Notification

The form is stamped MAY 14 and carries the line “Prescribed by P5110” and, at the foot, “This replaces BP-A0710 of JUN 2010.” The top of the form is five checkbox lines — CHIEF STATE LAW ENFORCEMENT, CHIEF LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT, SEX OFFENDER REGISTRATION OFFICE, TRIBAL LAW ENFORCEMENT, UNITED STATES PROBATION OFFICER, each with an address block, under the instruction “(Check all that apply).”

The preprinted body reads:

“Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4042, the Federal Bureau of Prisons is notifying your office of the release of an offender who, based upon available information, was convicted of a federal drug trafficking crime, or a crime of violence. Notification is also required if an offender has a documented history or conviction of a sex offense.

Note: Sex offender individuals are subject to registration as a sex offender under federal law.”

Then six numbered blocks: 1) Offender’s Name; 2) Register Number; 3) Final Release Date; 4) Offender’s Projected Address; 5) “Current and/or prior criminal history of offense(s)” — a two-column table headed “Offense and Date of Conviction” and “Detailed Description”; 6) “Release Conditions or Restrictions other than the Standard Conditions of Supervision.” It is signed by the Warden or the Residential Reentry Manager, carries the filing instruction “FILE IN SECTION 5 UNLESS APPROPRIATE FOR PRIVACY FOLDER,” is copied to the U.S. Probation Officer “when applicable,” and closes with a forwarding instruction to the recipient: “In the event you are not the law enforcement agency with jurisdictional authority consistent with the releasee’s address, please forward these documents to the appropriate authority.”

Two lines on the form are broader than the Program Statement behind it. Field 5 is captioned “Current and/or prior criminal history” — which is precisely the prior-conviction basis the Fifth Circuit held § 4042(b) does not require. And the preprinted sentence says notification is required if a person “has a documented history or conviction of a sex offense,” while PS 5110.17 at pp. 6–7 expressly excludes a Public Safety Factor resting on conduct that produced no sexual-offense conviction, and states that “administrative findings for sexual offenses may not be the basis for registration or notification.” Where a notification appears to have gone out on the form’s broader language rather than the statement’s narrower rule, the statement is the document to quote.

BP-A0648, Sex Offender Registration and Treatment Notification

Four pages. Page 1 is stamped JUL 14, headed “(Page #1–must be accompanied with pages #2-4)”, and carries “Prescribed by P5110” and “Replaces BP-A0648 of JUN 2010.”

Part A — completed at the final program review — reads in part:

“You are subject to registration as a sex offender in any state in which you reside, are employed, carry on a vocation, or are a student.

Your duties pursuant to Title 42 U.S.C. §§ 16913 – 16916 are detailed in Part C of this form.”

with two checkboxes (“Current conviction of sexual offense” / “Prior conviction of sexual offense”) and, immediately above the signature line:

“I have been informed that, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2250, failure to register as required is a federal offense, punishable by fine or up to ten years imprisonment.”

Part B lists two treatment agencies with address, telephone and “Other Pertinent Information,” under the text: “We have identified the following treatment program(s), at or near your district of release, which may be of assistance to you. We strongly encourage you to contact these programs, or another program that your United States Probation Officer (Parole or Supervision Office for D.C. Offenders) may recommend while you are under supervision.” It is signed by the inmate and by the Unit Manager or RRM and copied to the Chief U.S. Probation Officer and to the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency.

Part C reprints the text of the registration statutes in full.

Read the citation on that form. Part A and Part C both point to “Title 42 U.S.C. §§ 16913 – 16916.” Those provisions were editorially reclassified out of Title 42 into Title 34 in 2017 — the registry requirement the form calls § 16913 is now 34 U.S.C. § 20913. The form face is dated JUL 14 and has not been revised. Nothing about the substance turned on the renumbering, but the document a person signs at their final program review directs them to a part of the U.S. Code that no longer contains the text it quotes — which matters if they, or a family member, later try to look it up.

And note what the form does not do. Nothing on it is a determination that any particular registration duty applies to you. The preprinted sentences are the Bureau’s general notice; the questions of whether you must register, where, for how long, and under what tier are decided by SORNA and by the jurisdiction where you actually live. Signing Part A records that you were told. It does not resolve the legal question, and you should not treat it as having done so.

Who gets flagged, and when the letter goes out

The five-day rule is statutory, not policy

The deadline comes from Congress. Section 4042(b)(1) provides that “at least 5 days prior to the date on which a prisoner described in paragraph (3) is to be released on supervised release, or, in the case of a prisoner on supervised release, at least 5 days prior to the date on which the prisoner changes residence to a new jurisdiction, written notice of the release or change of residence shall be provided to the chief law enforcement officers of each State, tribal, and local jurisdiction in which the prisoner will reside.” For sex offenders, § 4042(c) uses the same five-day figure “for a person who is released from the custody of the Bureau of Prisons whose expected place of residence following release is known to the Bureau of Prisons.”

The Bureau builds a cushion into its own instruction. Staff are told to mail the BP-A0710 “via first class from the institution or RRM office at least two weeks before the inmate’s release, to ensure they are received at least five days before the release date” (PS 5110.17 at p. 10). Faxes are permitted as an alternate method when transmission can be confirmed and documented, and email only through a secure shared database.

Where a court orders an immediate release, the Bureau’s instruction is to notify “without delay,” normally on the first business day, by fax, with a photocopy following by regular mail (PS 5110.17 at p. 11).

Who is covered

Under § 4042(b)(3), the drug-and-violence notification applies where “the prisoner was convicted of— (A) a drug trafficking crime, as that term is defined in section 924(c)(2); or (B) a crime of violence (as defined in section 924(c)(3)).” Those definitions are borrowed from the firearms statute. Section 924(c)(2) defines a drug trafficking crime as “any felony punishable under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 801 et seq.), the Controlled Substances Import and Export Act (21 U.S.C. 951 et seq.), or chapter 705 of title 46.” Section 924(c)(3) defines a crime of violence as a felony that “(A) has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person or property of another, or (B) that by its nature, involves a substantial risk that physical force against the person or property of another may be used in the course of committing the offense.”

The Bureau layers three limits on top of the statute in its own text:

• Felonies only. “Prior convictions warranting notification must be for felonies; convictions identified as misdemeanors should be disregarded for purposes of this Program Statement” (PS 5110.17 at p. 7).
• Federal only, for drugs. “For ‘drug trafficking crimes,’ staff consider only Federal convictions as a basis for notification. For ‘crimes of violence,’ staff consider both state and Federal convictions” (PS 5110.17 at p. 7).
• Convictions only, for in-custody conduct. “Violent crimes and drug trafficking crimes committed while in the custody of the Bureau or other correctional agencies are not to be used for notifications unless there was a court conviction” (PS 5110.17 at p. 14).

For the sex-offense side, the statement applies to “any inmate in the Bureau’s custody who is required to register under SORNA,” identified through the Sex Offender Public Safety Factor, with two written exceptions (PS 5110.17 at pp. 6–7):

• “Individuals whose PSF is based on behavior that did not result in a conviction for a sexual offense; for example, the Pre-sentence Investigation (PSI) describes a charge for sexual assault or rape, but the individual was convicted of Simple Assault.
• Individuals whose PSF is based on behavior while imprisoned that resulted in a guilty finding under institution disciplinary proceedings but not a court conviction. Administrative findings for sexual offenses may not be the basis for registration or notification.”

That second exclusion is worth reading twice. A guilty finding at a disciplinary hearing — a “shot” — is not a conviction, and by the Bureau’s own instruction it “may not be the basis for registration or notification.” People carry a Sex Offender PSF for conduct that never reached a courtroom, and the Program Statement says plainly that such a PSF does not by itself put a person into the notification stream.

Who receives the letter

The statement defines four categories of recipient (PS 5110.17 at p. 6): the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the State (the State Attorney General or designee); the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the Tribe; the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the Local Jurisdiction (the municipal or county agency matching the projected address, and where jurisdictions overlap, “the more geographically specific agency”); and Sex Offender Registration Officials, meaning the state, tribal, or local office designated to receive that information based on the projected release address.

For a direct release from an institution, staff send one BP-A0710 to each of the chief state, tribal, and local law enforcement officials and one to the appropriate U.S. Probation Office — and, for sex offenses only, one more to the registration agency (PS 5110.17 at p. 11). The statement works through three named examples on pp. 12–13, all turning on whether the release address is on tribal land and whether that tribe has elected to carry out SORNA.

Everything in this section runs on one fact: the projected release address. Staff are told to use SENTRY to monitor imminent releases and that “the inmate’s release address is used to determine the appropriate agencies to receive notification.” If the address in the file is wrong, the letters go to the wrong agencies.

What release notification means for you

If you are the person inside: your notification status is knowable

Your notification status is not a mystery you have to guess at. Three documents in your own file record it, and you can ask for all three.

The Program Review Report carries the notification section. The Program Statement instructs that newly designated people identified under the applicability criteria “must be notified in writing at initial classification” of § 4042(b) or § 4042(c), on that report, and that everyone else is notified “at their next regularly scheduled Program Review” (PS 5110.17 at pp. 9–10). Status is supposed to be re-checked at each review, and any change discussed with you and documented. Your unit team and program review meeting is where that conversation happens.

The BP-A0648 (Sex Offender Registration and Treatment Notification) has three parts. Part A is the registration notice, completed at your last program review before release. Part B is the notification of community treatment programs, which you sign. Part C is “Inmate Responsibilities,” which has no signature page but which the statement says “it is mandatory that this information be provided to the inmate” (PS 5110.17 at p. 14). Parts A and B go out to law enforcement and registration officials with the BP-A0710; Part C does not. The original stays in Section 5 (Release Processing) of your central file, and the statement says copies for you “must be made from the original.”

The BP-A0710 itself. A dated copy of each notification form “is maintained in the disclosable portion of section 5 (Release Processing) of the Inmate Central File” (PS 5110.17 at p. 11). “Disclosable” is the operative word — you may ask to review it.

The Program Statement also states, in one sentence, that you may contest the flag: “An inmate may use the Administrative Remedy Program to contest his/her identification as being subject to notification or registration requirements” (PS 5110.17 at p. 9). That is an unusually explicit invitation, and it points to the ordinary administrative remedy route.

If you are the family: check the projected release date

The most useful thing you can do is check the projected release address long before it matters. Every letter the Bureau sends is addressed off that field. If your loved one plans to live with you and the address in SENTRY is a prior residence, a shelter, or a placeholder, the notifications go to the wrong county — and correcting it afterward is far harder than correcting it in advance. Address changes belong to release planning, which runs through the unit team and, once a halfway house is involved, the Residential Reentry Manager.

Understand also what a notification is and is not. It is a letter to law-enforcement and registration agencies containing the six items listed above. It is not a public announcement, not a press release, and not a neighborhood flyer. Whether any of that information later becomes public is governed by the law of the state where the person lives, not by Bureau policy. If someone in your family is preparing for release under a sex-offense conviction, our page on surviving prison as a sex offender and on sex offender treatment programs covers the custodial side; the reentry side is a legal question for counsel in the district of release.

If you are new to how the Bureau handles records, notices and family contact generally, our guide on what families should know about federal prison is the orientation piece.

If you are counsel: release notification

Four points of leverage, in order of how often they matter.

The Henrikson line. In Henrikson v. Guzik, 249 F.3d 395 (5th Cir. 2001), the Fifth Circuit held that § 4042(b) reaches only the current offense: “An examination of the statute’s text and overall scheme manifest that Congress was only requiring the Bureau to notify if the prisoner’s current conviction was for a crime of violence or a drug trafficking crime.” The same opinion is one of the cleaner appellate statements on the weight of Bureau policy generally — the court held that interpretations “not arrived at by ‘formal adjudication or notice-and-comment rulemaking’ … do not warrant Chevron-style deference,” and are “entitled to respect, but only to the extent that they have the ‘power to persuade.'” The Bureau built the ruling into policy geographically rather than nationally: the statement applies it to releases from institutions, RRCs and private facilities “in the Fifth Circuit, which covers all institutions in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas,” and states that “the sentencing jurisdiction is not relevant to the application of Henrikson; only the location of the releasing entity is relevant” (PS 5110.17 at pp. 7–8). The Bureau also states expressly that “the Henrikson ruling does not apply to Sex Offender notifications.”

The residual-clause problem. The Bureau’s screening definition of “crime of violence” reproduces § 924(c)(3) in full, including clause (B). In United States v. Davis, 588 U.S. 445 (2019), the Supreme Court held: “Section 924(c)(3)(B) is unconstitutionally vague.” The Program Statement is dated 2014 and has not been reissued since. Whether and how Davis constrains the Bureau’s administrative use of that clause for notification screening is not a question any court we located has resolved, and we do not assert an answer. But the mismatch between a 2014 policy and a 2019 holding is real, it is on the face of both documents, and it is worth raising where the only basis for a notification flag is the residual clause rather than the elements clause.

Documentary discipline. The Bureau’s own instructions supply several bright lines: no PSI copies used for criminal history; misdemeanors disregarded; state drug convictions disregarded; administrative findings excluded; in-custody conduct excluded absent conviction; Director’s-Discretion offenses not processed for violence notification. Each is a checkable fact against the Categorization of Offenses statement and the judgment.

Immunity, and what it means for remedies. Section 4042(c)(5) provides that “[t]he United States and its agencies, officers, and employees shall be immune from liability based on good faith conduct in carrying out this subsection and subsection (b).” That is a substantial obstacle to a damages theory and a reason the practical remedy here is nearly always administrative and prospective — fix the assignment, fix the address, fix the letter — rather than compensatory after the fact. See our Federal Tort Claims Act page for the general framework.

What changed when PS 5110.17 merged two statements

PS 5110.17 merged two older statements into one. Its header records the rescission of P5141.02, Sex Offender Notification and Registration (12/14/98), and P5110.15, Notification of Release to State and Local Law Enforcement Officials (8/30/00), and states that it “integrates the two Program Statements mentioned above.” Three changes are called out as significant (PS 5110.17 at p. 2): the addition of the requirement that the Bureau notify convicted sex offenders of community programs available on release; mandatory notification to Tribal authorities as identified in SORNA; and policy and procedures reflecting Henrikson v. Guzik.

BOP’s 2026 reissue did not touch it. The Bureau reissued 23 Program Statements effective 22 June 2026 and dozens more between February and May 2026. PS 5110.17 was not among them. It carries no Change Notice and remains in force in its May 16, 2014 form.

Two citation problems have opened up under it since 2014, and both are visible on the face of the document.

The first is codification. The statement cites SORNA’s definitions at “42 U.S.C. § 16911(5)(A)” and the community-treatment provision at “42 U.S.C. § 13943,” and the BP-A0648 form points to “Title 42 U.S.C. §§ 16913 – 16916.” SORNA was editorially reclassified in 2017 out of Title 42 and into Title 34. The definitions the statement quotes now sit at 34 U.S.C. § 20911; the registry requirement the form reprints is now 34 U.S.C. § 20913, whose codification note states that it “was formerly classified to section 16913 of Title 42, The Public Health and Welfare, prior to editorial reclassification and renumbering as this section”; and § 4042 itself now refers to “the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act” by name rather than by a Title 42 citation. Nothing substantive turned on the move, but a reader following the Program Statement’s — or the form’s — citations to Title 42 will not find the current text where those documents say it is.

The second is Davis, discussed above.

And one more thing about the document itself. PS 5110.17 has no Section 5. Its numbered sections run 1, 2, 3, 4, then jump to 6. We confirmed this in the original PDF as well as in the extracted text, so it is a gap in the Bureau’s own printed statement, not a scanning artifact. It has no substantive effect — no cross-reference in the statement points to a “Section 5” — but if you are working section-by-section against the PDF, that is why the numbering skips.

Where people get stuck on the Fifth Circuit split

The Fifth Circuit split — a prior conviction that counts in one district and not another

This is the single most common surprise. Two people with identical records get different treatment depending on where they are held at the end of the sentence, not where they were sentenced. The statement’s own example: staff at FCC Beaumont must comply with Henrikson when releasing someone sentenced in the Southern District of New York; staff at FCC Allenwood releasing someone sentenced in the Southern District of Texas are not bound by it, “regardless of where the inmate’s supervision will be” (PS 5110.17 at p. 8).

The route. If the assignment in your file is V94 PV or V94 PD — notification based on a prior conviction — and you are housed in Louisiana, Mississippi or Texas, the correct assignment is V94 PV5 or V94 PD 5, which suppresses the letter. Raise it first with your correctional counselor or case manager on a BP-A0148 Inmate Request to Staff — a “cop-out,” the one-page written request that starts almost everything in the Bureau. If that does not fix it, the administrative remedy program runs BP-8 informal resolution → BP-9 to the warden → BP-10 to the region → BP-11 to the Office of National Inmate Appeals. Because notification runs on a release date, timing matters more here than in most remedy filings.

A Public Safety Factor built on conduct that never became a conviction

A Sex Offender PSF can rest on a presentence report narrative or a disciplinary finding. The Program Statement excludes both from notification (PS 5110.17 at pp. 6–7), but the PSF and the notification assignment are separate entries, and correcting one does not automatically correct the other.

The route. Ask, in writing, for the basis of the notification assignment specifically — not the PSF. If the answer is a charge that resolved to a non-sexual conviction, or a disciplinary guilty finding, the statement’s own text is your argument. Cop-out first, then BP-9. Keep the PSF question separate; it belongs to security designation and custody classification and has its own analysis.

The wrong address, and the letters that follow it

Everything downstream of the projected release address is automatic. Staff are told that “if an inmate may be releasing to tribal land, staff discuss with the inmate and review the PSI and Central File for supporting evidence,” and that “in some cases, it may be necessary to verify the release address with community resources” (PS 5110.17 at p. 10). Nothing comparable is prescribed for verifying an ordinary residential address.

The route. This one is best handled before the two-week mailing window, not after. Address and release plan are unit-team business, and once a transfer to a Residential Reentry Center is in play the Residential Reentry Manager completes the addressee and projected-address blocks and signs the form (PS 5110.17 at p. 11). Our page on the RRC release plan covers how that plan is built, and halfway house placement procedures covers the referral mechanics.

Detainers, and the notification that arrives late or not at all

If someone is released to a detaining authority rather than to the street, no BP-A0710 and no BP-A0648 are completed. But the statement adds a condition most readers miss: “should institution staff receive written notice that the detainer was not executed, and the inmate was released on Supervised Release, probation, or parole, a reasonable attempt must be made to notify state, tribal, and local law enforcement officials of his/her release … based upon his/her most recent release information” (PS 5110.17 at p. 9). The trigger is written notice that the detainer was not executed, and “most recent release information” may be stale by the time it is used.

The route. Where a detainer is pending, confirm in writing what the Bureau has recorded about it. Our page on detainers and the Interstate Agreement on Detainers covers how a detainer is lodged and challenged; the notification consequence is downstream of that.

Related BOP policy on sex offender release notification

The Program Statement’s own References section names the statements it depends on. The ones with pages here:

• Administrative Remedy Program — the BP-9/10/11 route the statement points you to for contesting a notification flag
• Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification — where the Sex Offender Public Safety Factor is assigned
• Categorization of Offenses — Section 3 defines which federal offenses count as crimes of violence; Section 4 lists the Director’s Discretion offenses that do not trigger a violence notification
• Transfer of Offenders To or From Foreign Countries — treaty-transfer cases are handled differently under Section 4.b of this statement
• Unit Team and Program Review — where the notification section of the Program Review Report is completed
• Home Confinement and the Community Corrections Manual — the RRC and home-confinement pathways the statement’s Section 7 covers separately

Closely adjacent, and frequently confused with this one:

• Victim and Witness Notification — a different statutory scheme, a different set of recipients, and not what PS 5110.17 governs
• Central Inmate Monitoring and Separatees — the WITSEC procedures in Section 1.d of this statement run through the Inmate Monitoring Section
• Sex Offender Programs and Release Preparation Program — the treatment and reentry side
• Central File and Records — where the BP-A0710 and BP-A0648 are filed, and what is disclosable
• Release Gratuities, Transportation and Clothing — the rest of what happens on release day

For the wider picture of shortening or reshaping a federal sentence, see our federal prison early release practice hub, and the BOP policy library for the full set of explainers.

Frequently Asked Questions About Release Notification

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