Bureau of Prisons Policy Updates

BOP policy news on this page collects Bureau of Prisons rules that shape daily life for a person in federal custody, and the statutes those rules are written to carry out. A program statement is the Bureau's instruction to its own staff. It is not a statute. If a statement and a statute disagree, the statute controls.

What BOP policy news covers

The Bureau publishes program statements at bop.gov/policy. They cover subjects such as sentence computation, prerelease placement, programs, medical care, and discipline. This category is short. The note filed here is the July 2020 account of COVID-19 in federal prisons, including later changes to CARES Act home confinement and to compassionate release. Read it for that history. A July 2020 snapshot is not today's case count and it is not today's home-confinement practice.

Prerelease custody is in 18 U.S.C. § 3624(c). The Director of the Bureau shall, to the extent practicable, see that a person spends a portion of the final months of the term, not to exceed 12 months, under conditions that prepare for reentry. Those conditions may include a community correctional facility. The statute caps home confinement under that subsection at the shorter of 10 percent of the term or 6 months. The same paragraph says the Bureau shall, to the extent practicable, place people with lower risk levels and lower needs on home confinement for the maximum time that paragraph allows. The CARES Act authority used during the pandemic is a different grant of power. The July 2020 note is where this site records how that grant was used and how it later changed.

Time credits are in 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4). An eligible person who completes recidivism-reduction programming or productive activities earns 10 days of credit for every 30 days of successful participation, and an extra 5 days for every 30 days when the Bureau has found the person to be at minimum or low risk and the risk has not increased over two consecutive assessments. People the statute lists as ineligible do not earn the credits. The credits apply toward prerelease custody or supervised release on the terms in the statute.

Compassionate release is easy to confuse with a program statement. The motion is filed in the sentencing court under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). The person ordinarily asks the warden first and may go to court when the Bureau's process is finished or 30 days after the warden receives the request, whichever is earlier. A program statement can describe the Bureau's review. The judge decides the motion. A change in the statute itself is filed with law changes, not here.

Who a Bureau rule affects

The rule touches the person in a Bureau facility, a contract facility, or prerelease custody. A loved one reading the same sheet can start the conversation. We need the client's permission before we discuss the case. The judgment and the presentence report are also what the Bureau uses when it computes a term, so the question can come up before designation.

How a policy question moves

Start with the program statement and the statute it cites, then set both next to the person's own papers. A complaint about a Bureau decision often begins in the administrative remedy program (28 C.F.R. part 542), which moves from the institution to the regional office and then to the Central Office. A dispute about how the Bureau is carrying out the length of a sentence is often a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 in the district of confinement. A request to reduce the sentence for extraordinary and compelling reasons stays in the sentencing court under § 3582(c)(1)(A).

Records that matter

Useful papers are the judgment, the presentence report if you may have it, the Bureau register number, the sentence-computation sheet, the program statement number and date, any administrative-remedy filings and the responses, and recent medical records when health is the issue. The inmate locator at bop.gov/inmateloc finds someone in federal custody. It does not list a state prison or a local jail.

How a consultation works

If the question is a Bureau computation, a placement, or a program-statement denial, book a one-hour meeting with Brandon Sample. The meeting is paid. Send the form and we will contact you to set a time. The register number and whatever computation sheet you have are enough to start. You do not need the legal vocabulary.

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Contact does not create an attorney-client relationship.