Transfer of Inmates to State Agents For Production on State Writs

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

Program Statement	5875.13
Subject	Transfer of Inmates to State Agents For Production on State Writs
Current edition	February 20, 2015
Change notices	None
Supersedes	P5875.12, Transfer of Inmates to State Agents for Production on State Writs (7/31/2003)
Governing regulation	28 C.F.R. §§ 527.30–527.31 (part 527, subpart D)
Governing statute	No statute authorizes the transfer itself. The Program Statement cites 28 U.S.C. § 1651 (All Writs Act) for the treatment of D.C. Superior Court writs. Credit consequences run through 18 U.S.C. § 3585.
Related BP forms	BP-A0565 IAD/State Writ – Prosecutor’s Certification; BP-A0567 IAD/State Writ – Acknowledgment; BP-A0392 Release Authorization
Official PDF	https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5875_013.pdf

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

A state writ is how a state or local court borrows someone out of a federal prison for a court date and then sends them back. It is a loan, not a transfer of ownership — the person stays in federal custody the whole time, even while sitting in a county jail hundreds of miles away, and that single fact is what decides how the time counts. If your loved one has been permanently handed to a state prison system to finish the federal sentence there, you want transfer to state custody before release instead; for routine movement between federal prisons, see the federal inmate transfer process.

The rule itself: state writs

The binding law here is a regulation, and the Program Statement reproduces it. 28 C.F.R. § 527.31(c) is the key provision — the checklist a state’s request has to satisfy before a warden may let anyone through the gate. It is reproduced verbatim below, from the regulation itself:

“(c) The request for transfer of custody to state agents shall be made by the prosecutor or other authority who acts on behalf of the court and shall be directed to the Warden of the institution in which the inmate is confined. The request shall be made by letter. The request shall indicate the need for appearance of the inmate, name of the court, nature of the action, date of the requested appearance, name and phone number of the state agency or other organization with responsibility for transporting the inmate, the name and location where the inmate will be confined during legal proceedings, and anticipated date of return. For civil cases, the request shall also indicate the reason that production on writ is necessary and some other alternative is not available. The applying authority shall provide either at the time of application or with the agent assuming custody, a statement signed by an authorized official that state or local officials with custody will provide for the safekeeping, custody, and care of the inmate, will assume full responsibility for that custody, and will return the inmate to Bureau of Prisons’ custody promptly on conclusion of the inmate’s appearance in the state or local proceedings for which the writ is issued.”

Quoted from 28 C.F.R. § 527.31. The same text appears in Program Statement 5875.13 at pp. 3–4.

Broken into its parts, the request must state eight things, plus a ninth for civil cases:

#	What the request must contain	Regulation
1	The need for the appearance of the inmate	§ 527.31(c)
2	Name of the court	§ 527.31(c)
3	Nature of the action	§ 527.31(c)
4	Date of the requested appearance	§ 527.31(c)
5	Name and phone number of the state agency or other organization responsible for transporting the inmate	§ 527.31(c)
6	The name and location where the inmate will be confined during legal proceedings	§ 527.31(c)
7	Anticipated date of return	§ 527.31(c)
8	A signed statement by an authorized official that state or local officials will provide for safekeeping, custody and care, will assume full responsibility for custody, and will return the inmate promptly on conclusion of the appearance	§ 527.31(c)
9	Civil cases only: the reason production on writ is necessary and some other alternative is not available	§ 527.31(c)

Three further requirements sit outside that list and are just as concrete.

A certified writ, before anyone moves. “A certified copy of the writ (one with the Seal of the Court) must be received at the institution prior to release of the inmate. Institution staff shall verify the authenticity of the writ” (28 C.F.R. § 527.31(d)). The Program Statement tells staff how: telephone the Clerk of the Court that issued the writ, and note on the writ itself the “Name of verifying court official,” “His/her title,” “Phone number,” “Bureau staff member’s name and title,” and “Date.” It adds that “The Court’s seal may be electronic or manual” (PS 5875.13 at pp. 4–5).

The warden’s standard, and it is personal. The regulation sets it:

“(b) The Warden shall authorize transfer only when satisfied that the inmate’s appearance is necessary, that state and local arrangements are satisfactory, that the safety or other interests of the inmate (such as an imminent parole hearing) are not seriously jeopardized, and that federal interests, which include those of the public, will not be interfered with, or harmed. Authorization may not be given where substantial concern exists over any of these considerations.”

Quoted from 28 C.F.R. § 527.31.

The Program Statement adds that “The Warden personally reviews and makes a decision on any production request, civil or criminal,” and that “This authority may not be delegated below the level of Acting Warden” (PS 5875.13 at p. 3). Note that the regulation names the inmate’s own interests as one of the four things the warden must be satisfied about, and gives an imminent parole hearing as the example. That is a rare instance of a BOP regulation making the incarcerated person’s interest an express element of a staff decision.

A written security commitment from the state. Under the Program Statement, “The Warden must receive the state authorities’ written agreement that they will provide the same level of security (number of escorts, restraints, etc.) Bureau policy requires. . . . Failure of state authorities to agree to these requirements is grounds for denying the request” (PS 5875.13 at p. 3). See escorted trips for the underlying security levels.

The distinction that decides how time counts

This is the most important paragraph on the page, and it is the reason people find it.

There are two Latin writs, and they are not the same thing:

• A writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum produces someone so they can be prosecuted — arraigned, tried, sentenced.
• A writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum produces someone so they can testify as a witness.

Neither one transfers custody in the sense that matters. Under the doctrine of primary jurisdiction, the sovereign that first takes custody of a person keeps it until it gives it up, and producing the person on a writ is not giving it up. The Seventh Circuit put it plainly in Pope v. Perdue, 889 F.3d 410 (7th Cir. 2018): “Using this writ, a sovereign may take temporary custody of a prisoner in the custody of another sovereign, for the purpose of prosecution, without acquiring primary custody.” The same court explained the stakes in the same opinion: “Under the doctrine of primary custody, an inmate’s federal sentence may only commence after the government exercises primary jurisdiction over him.”

The Eighth Circuit describes the same rule in the language most often quoted back at BOP staff. In United States v. Cole, 416 F.3d 894 (8th Cir. 2005), the court held that “If, while under the primary jurisdiction of one sovereign, a defendant is transferred to the other jurisdiction to face a charge, primary jurisdiction is not lost but rather the defendant is considered to be ‘on loan’ to the other sovereign.” Cole also states the exit list: “Generally, a sovereign can only relinquish primary jurisdiction in one of four ways: 1) release on bail, 2) dismissal of charges, 3) parole, or 4) expiration of sentence.”

Why this matters concretely: 18 U.S.C. § 3585 provides that a federal sentence “commences on the date the defendant is received in custody awaiting transportation to, or arrives voluntarily to commence service of sentence at, the official detention facility at which the sentence is to be served,” and that credit for prior custody is available only for time “that has not been credited against another sentence.”

Put those together and the shape of the problem appears. Days spent out on a state writ are days in federal custody, physically located somewhere else. They are not a gap in the federal sentence, and they are not automatically a second helping of state credit. But whether any particular day is credited to a federal sentence, a state sentence, or neither depends on which sovereign held primary jurisdiction, what each judgment said, and what the other sovereign actually did with the time — questions of record, not questions this page can answer.

We will not tell you how your time will be computed, and you should be careful with anyone who does. What we can tell you is where the answer lives: in the judgments, the writ paperwork, the state’s custody records and the Bureau’s computation. If the numbers look wrong, that is worked through prior custody credit and challenging a BOP sentence computation, and the underlying rules are in the Sentence Computation Manual.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: The document that most often settles a writ-related credit dispute is the least glamorous one in the file: the BP-A0392 Release Authorization, which the Program Statement says “serves as the receipt of the official taking custody of an inmate released on writ,” with the receiving agent’s name written on it. Paired with the certified writ and its verification notation, it establishes who had the person and on what authority, day by day. When we build a computation challenge, those are the pages we ask for first — before anybody argues about the law.

Writs, detainers, and why the difference is not academic

A detainer is a notice filed with the Bureau saying another jurisdiction wants the person when the federal sentence ends. A writ is a command to produce the person now. They interact, and the Program Statement’s rule is precise:

“State or local law enforcement agents may obtain custody of an inmate pursuant to state writs of habeas corpus ad prosequendum or ad testificandum, if there is no detainer on file from any jurisdiction in the receiving state.”

Reproduced from Program Statement 5875.13 at p. 1.

And the Program Statement spells out the trap at p. 3:

“The state is bound by the IAD’s provisions only when a detainer has been filed. If there is no detainer on file from the jurisdiction where the prisoner is being requested under a writ, but one or more detainers are on file from other jurisdictions in the same state, then the IAD’s provisions apply.”

So a detainer filed by any jurisdiction in the receiving state pulls the whole production into the Interstate Agreement on Detainers, with its anti-shuttling and speedy-trial provisions — even if the county that wants the person for trial never filed one itself. That is not a distinction most people would guess at, and it changes which body of rules governs. See detainers and the Interstate Agreement on Detainers and the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act.

The Program Statement also sets out its own view of the Agreement’s purpose, at p. 1: “The Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD) was not meant to be the sole means of obtaining an inmate’s custody for prosecution. Legislative history suggests the IAD was enacted to provide prisoners with a method of removing detainers lodged against them, not as a means of promoting prosecution.” That is the Bureau reading legislative history, not a court holding, and it should be read as the agency’s position rather than as law.

Two further routing rules from p. 3 are worth knowing:

• Tribal court writs “are treated in the same manner as writs from a state or local court.”
• D.C. Superior Court writs, civil and criminal, “are treated in the same manner as Federal writs (per the All Writs Act, Title 28 U.S.C. § 1651)” — so they do not run through this state-writ process at all.

Civil writs are treated very differently from criminal ones

If a state or local civil case wants a federal prisoner as a witness, the bar is materially higher. The regulation provides:

“(g) Transfers in civil cases pursuant to a writ of habeas corpus ad testificandum must be cleared through both the Regional Counsel and the Warden. Transfer ordinarily shall be recommended only if the case is substantial, where testimony cannot be obtained through alternative means such as depositions or interrogatories, and where security arrangements permit. Postponement of the production until after the inmate’s release from federal custody will always be considered, particularly if release is within twelve months.”

Quoted from 28 C.F.R. § 527.31.

The Program Statement adds the sentence that most directly answers the question people actually ask: “There is no presumption that an inmate must be released in state civil cases” (PS 5875.13 at p. 5). It also directs that Regional Counsel consult the U.S. Attorney from the prosecuting district before recommending release (PS 5875.13 at pp. 5–6).

What happens on the day

The Program Statement’s release procedures at p. 6 contain the two documents a person actually encounters.

The BP-A0392 Release Authorization “serves as the receipt of the official taking custody of an inmate released on writ. The receiving state agent’s name must be obtained on the Release Authorization.”

The BP-A0567 IAD/State Writ – Acknowledgment is explained to the person before they leave, and it exists for one scenario:

“If the inmate is released improperly to the community by local authorities, or improperly transferred to a non-Federal facility or agency while on state writ, this form requires the inmate to call the person designated on the BP-A0567 immediately (collect or through any other communication system available), or upon the release or transfer.”

Reproduced from Program Statement 5875.13 at p. 6.

Staff have the person sign it; “If the inmate refuses to sign, staff advise him/her of the form’s contents and document the refusal to sign.” A copy goes to the Control Center and the Operations Lieutenant, because that copy “provides the basis for accepting an inmate’s collect call.” And the instruction if it happens: “If the inmate is released to the community improperly, the contact person instructs him/her to surrender to the nearest USMS Office.”

This is one of the few places in BOP policy where the person is given an affirmative instruction to protect themselves. Being let out by mistake while on a state writ is not freedom; it is an escape exposure. Read the BP-A0567, and remember the number on it.

They are still Bureau prisoners the whole time. “Inmates released on writ remain in custody and are returned to the sending institution when court proceedings are completed. At 60 calendar day intervals, CS staff will contact custodial authorities to determine the inmate’s status” (PS 5875.13 at p. 7). Staff document the date, phone number, name of person contacted, the inmate’s current location, current status, and the name of the staff member making contact.

What a state writ transfer means for you

If you are the person inside: you are not being transferred or released

You are not being transferred and you are not being released. You remain a federal prisoner; a state court has borrowed you. Three practical things follow.

Read the BP-A0567 before you sign it and memorize or write down the contact name and number on it. If a local jail ever tries to release you to the street while you are out on a writ, that form is the instruction that keeps you out of an escape charge.

Keep your own dates. Note the day you left, every facility that held you, and the day you came back. The Bureau’s staff are directed to check on you every sixty days and to document it, but you are the only person present for all of it. Those dates are the raw material of any later computation dispute.

Understand that your parole or programming interests are formally in the mix. The regulation requires the warden to be satisfied that “the safety or other interests of the inmate (such as an imminent parole hearing) are not seriously jeopardized.” If a writ would collide with something scheduled — a hearing, a program completion, a medical procedure — say so in writing to your unit team through an Inmate Request to Staff before you go, so the concern is in the record rather than in your memory.

If you are the family: the silence during a writ

The hardest part of a writ is usually the silence. The person disappears from the facility locator or shows an unfamiliar location, visits stop, and the phone list does not work — because the person is physically in a county jail or state facility operating under someone else’s rules, while still belonging to the Bureau.

Two things help. First, the sending institution is still responsible: Correctional Systems staff at the parent institution are the ones directed to track the person and to bring them back, so that is where to direct questions about status and return. Second, the writ names a return date. The regulation requires the request to state the “anticipated date of return,” so a date exists on paper somewhere, even if nobody has told you what it is.

Do not assume a long absence means something has gone wrong. Court schedules slip, and the Program Statement’s answer to a slipping schedule is a sixty-day check-in, not a recall.

If you are counsel: state writs

The regulation gives you a document-based route into a decision that otherwise looks purely discretionary. Section 527.31(c) is a checklist, and a request that omits an element — most commonly the signed safekeeping-and-return statement, or, in a civil case, the required showing that alternatives such as depositions or interrogatories will not serve — is a request that does not satisfy the rule the warden is applying.

For civil writs specifically, § 527.31(g) sets three conjunctive conditions plus a mandatory consideration: the case must be substantial, testimony must be unobtainable by alternative means, security arrangements must permit, and postponement until after release “will always be considered,” particularly where release is within twelve months. Regional Counsel clearance is required, and the Program Statement’s “no presumption” sentence is a useful quotation.

On the credit side, keep the two questions separate. Whether the Bureau should have produced your client on a writ is a § 527.31 question. Whether the resulting time counts is a primary-jurisdiction and 18 U.S.C. § 3585 question, worked through the computation, exhaustion, and — where exhaustion is complete — a § 2241 petition. Pope and Cole are the accessible statements of the doctrine; the controlling authority is whatever your circuit has said.

Two file-routing rules to note early: Witness Security cases go to the Inmate Monitoring Section at Central Office, and Central Inmate Monitoring cases require coordination “in accordance with the provisions of 28 CFR part 524, subpart F” under § 527.31(h) — see the Central Inmate Monitoring System.

What changed from PS 5875.12 to 5875.13

The February 20, 2015 edition rescinded P5875.12 (7/31/2003). The Bureau lists two changes:

“Policy Rescinded P5875.12 Transfer of Inmates to State Agents for Production on State Writs (7/31/03)

– Eliminated references to Inmate Systems Management and Inmate Systems Officers, replacing them with Correctional Systems (CS) and Correctional Systems Officer (CSO) due to decision to consolidate positions in the department. – Added use of the Jail and Commitment Corrections System (JACCS) to verify location of inmates while released under provisions of the IAD or on state writ.”

Reproduced from Program Statement 5875.13 at p. 2.

Both are administrative, and that is itself the finding worth reporting: the substantive rules on this page have not moved. The regulation the Program Statement reproduces, 28 C.F.R. §§ 527.30–527.31, carries the amendment history “[46 FR 34549, July 1, 1981, as amended at 50 FR 40105, Oct. 1, 1985; 62 FR 13826, Mar. 24, 1997]” — the substance dates from 1981 and was last amended in 1997. The current eCFR text matches what the 2015 Program Statement prints, word for word, in every subsection I checked.

The tracking tools did change. JACCS is the system staff are told to use to verify the location of someone housed with the District of Columbia Department of Corrections; SENTRY is used where the person is in a federal institution (PS 5875.13 at p. 7).

PS 5875.13 was not among the twenty-three Program Statements the Bureau reissued effective 22 June 2026, and nothing for it appears in the superseded set. The February 20, 2015 edition remains current and carries no change notice.

Where people get stuck when someone disappears on a writ

“He has been gone for months and nobody will tell us where he is.” The Program Statement puts the duty on the sending institution: Correctional Systems staff contact the custodial authority at sixty calendar day intervals and document the person’s current location and status in the Inmate Remand or Judgment & Commitment File. Ask the parent institution’s Correctional Systems department, not the county jail. If you get nowhere, an Inmate Request to Staff from the person inside, followed by the Administrative Remedy Program sequence — informal resolution, then BP-9 to the warden, BP-10 to the region, BP-11 to the Office of National Inmate Appeals — creates a paper record that the sixty-day contacts were or were not made.

“The time he spent out on the writ is missing from his sentence.” This is the single most common dispute in this area, and it is a computation dispute, not a writ dispute. The relevant facts are which sovereign had primary jurisdiction, whether the state credited the same days, and what each judgment ordered. Nothing on this page — and no consultant, and no other prisoner — can tell you the answer for a particular file. Work it through challenging a BOP sentence computation, with the certified writ, the BP-A0392 and the state custody records in hand.

“A county jail let him out while he was on a writ.” Follow the BP-A0567. It exists precisely for this. The Program Statement’s instruction is that the designated contact “instructs him/her to surrender to the nearest USMS Office.” Do that immediately and document the call. An improper release by a local authority is their error, but the exposure lands on the person who stays out.

“They keep taking him out for a state case that never goes anywhere.” The regulation requires each request to state “the need for appearance of the inmate” and the “anticipated date of return,” and requires the warden to be satisfied the appearance “is necessary” and that the person’s own interests “are not seriously jeopardized.” Repeated productions that disrupt programming, medical care or a scheduled hearing are worth putting in front of the warden in writing — in a civil case especially, where the regulation itself directs that postponement until after release “will always be considered.”

“He is being moved under the IAD, not a writ, and we do not know why.” Check whether any jurisdiction in the receiving state has a detainer on file. Under PS 5875.13 at p. 3, a detainer from any jurisdiction in that state pulls the production under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers even if the requesting county filed none. Which rules apply is determined by the detainers on file, not by what the paperwork is called.

Related BOP policy on state writs

• Transfer to state custody before release (PS 5140.44) — the permanent handover, expressly not governed by the writ or IAD procedures.
• Detainers and the Interstate Agreement on Detainers and the Interstate Agreement on Detainers Act — the parallel track a detainer switches you onto.
• Escorted trips (PS 5538) — named in this Program Statement for escort and security levels.
• Correctional Systems Manual (PS 5800.15) and receiving and discharge — the release mechanics this policy points staff to.
• Central Inmate Monitoring System (PS 5180.05) — required coordination for CIM cases under § 527.31(h).
• Sentence Computation Manual and nunc pro tunc state designation — where writ time and dual-sovereign sentences are actually reconciled.
• Civil contempt commitments (PS 5140.41) — the other situation in which a person is held in a Bureau facility on someone else’s authority.
• The federal inmate transfer process — the plain-language companion.
• Prior custody credit and § 2241 petitions — the remedies where a computation is wrong and administrative remedies are exhausted.

Frequently Asked Questions About State Writs and Transfers

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