Perhaps the single most common call that I get is from relatives of federal inmates, repeating some rumor about a new bill coming through Congress to give inmates a time cut. Sometimes they call, CERTAIN that some bill has already been passed to reduce the amount of time inmates serve from 85% to 65%. I’ve been hearing that since about 1990.
Well, it looks like we may be about to get the first “time cut” bill ever — the First Step Act, which passed the Senate today, 87-12, would give an additional 7 days of good time a year. Not a big deal — not a 20% reduction — but a help nonetheless.
The bill — summarized here and here — does three things to shorten sentences:
- Inmates can receive more “good time credits.” Inmates with no infractions now can get up to 47 days off each year. The bill increases the cap to 54, or another week a year.
- Inmates can get “earned time credits” by participating in more vocational and rehabilitative programs. Those credits would allow them to be released early to halfway houses or home confinement.
- It firms up the change to eliminate the crack-to-powder disparity that resulted in so many African-American men getting whacked so hard.
For people not yet sentenced, there would be some good news — mandatory minimums would be reduced, the “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” provisions would be pared back, and the use of the “safety valve” that lets first-time drug offenders get a below-guidelines sentence would be increased so that non-drug offenders with no violent record could get the same benefit.
In addition, there are a lot of provisions that just might make actually serving the sentence less onerous —
- A preference written into law to locate inmates within 500 miles of their homes;
- More money for job training and education opportunities in federal prisons;
- Easier access for churches and other non-profits to come in to provide services; and
- More halfway houses and re-entry programs.
This bill has to go back to the House to be passed (the House had passed a slightly different version, and the changes are not thought to contain any deal-breakers), and then signed by President Trump. The House is expecting to adjourn this week, so they’d better act fast. And because this is the last week of this session of Congress, if it isn’t passed by the House this week, we’ll have to start all over again with the new Congress in January.
Here’s hoping that the House can get it done.
Stay tuned!
