D.C. District Court Dismisses Class Action Against BOP Over Earned Sentence Credits
On June 9, 2025, the federal court for the District of Columbia dismissed a class action lawsuit that challenged the way the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) treated sentence credits earned by prisoners toward early release under the First Step Act (FSA), P.L. 115-391. Plaintiff prisoners claimed that the credits are mandatory, but BOP prevailed in its view that they are “optional.”
Signed into law in 2018 during the first Trump administration, the FSA was designed as a sweeping, bipartisan bill to “promote rehabilitation, lower recidivism, and reduce excessive sentences in the federal prison system,” according to The Sentencing Project. Among other provisions, the law created a system of earned time credits that allowed prisoners to cut time off of their sentences by participating in certain programs. As PLN reported, the FSA also gave the BOP a little over two years to implement this system as well as allow some low- and medium-risk offenders to be placed in halfway houses or other forms of pre-release custody. [See: PLN, May 2025, p. 52.] The BOP, however, failed to adhere to this timeline—and, instead of viewing the credits as compulsory, interpreted them as optional.
In response, in partnership with Jenner and Block LLP attorneys, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed the class action on December 24, 2024, on behalf of prisoners who had been told they were eligible for early release, only to be later denied a spot at a halfway house or home detention program. The lawsuit included two named plaintiffs, but thousands of federal prisoners found themselves in a similar predicament. In fact, frustrations over the delayed release dates led prisoners to stage a hunger strike in September 2024 at the Federal Prison Camp in Montgomery, Alabama. [See: PLN, Jan. 2025, p. 35.] ACLU Senior Counsel Arthur Spitzer said in a 2024 statement that there was “no excuse” for the BOP “to pretend not to understand Congress’s clear command that people who have earned the right to early release must be released.”
In dismissing the lawsuit, the Court agreed with the BOP’s regulatory interpretation of the FSA, affirming its assessment that the law does not mandate when the agency must transfer a prisoner to prerelease custody. The difference hinged on the word “shall” in the FSA, which the BOP changed to “may” when promulgating its rule to implement the provision. See: 28 C.F.R. § 523.44(a)(1). Plaintiffs claimed that the BOP impermissibly changed the law. But the district court said no, the BOP was just making clear what the law intended—and the law must have intended to leave the agency flexibility in when a prisoner is released to a halfway house, since space availability there is limited by budgetary constraints not entirely within the BOP’s control. Nevertheless, the Court’s decision marks a significant setback for efforts to promote rehabilitation in the federal prison system. See: Crowe v. Bur. of Prisons, USDC (D.D.C.), Case No. 1:24-cv-03582.
Additional source: The New York Times
Related legal case
Crowe v. Bur. of Prisons
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (D.D.C.), Case No. 1:24-cv-03582 |
| Level | District Court |