ACLU Sues BOP Over Failure to Implement First Step Act Release Credits
by Anthony W. Accurso
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit in federal court for the District of Columbia on December 20, 2024, challenging the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for treating sentence credits earned by prisoners towards early release under the First Step Act (FSA) as “optional.” The policy has kept thousands in prison past their mandated release dates.
Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) signed the FSA into law in December 2018, during his first term. It gave the BOP a little over two years to establish a system that categorized prisoners by recidivism risk, thus allowing low- and minimum-risk offenders the ability to earn sentence credits toward early release and earlier placement in pre-release custody, such as a halfway house or home confinement. The law also mandated that the BOP ensure there is enough space in halfway houses by contracting for sufficient bed space.
In the intervening years, the BOP has not only failed to procure more halfway house space but has also adopted a policy treating the release credits as optional, rather than mandatory. Prisoners frustrated over the lack of clarity about their release dates staged a hunger strike in September 2024 at the Federal Prison Camp in Montgomery, leaving the Alabama lockup on lockdown, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Jan. 2025, p.35.]
In partnership with Jenner and Block LLP attorneys, the ACLU filed its challenge, contending that “the BOP’s failure to implement the First Step Act according to its plain language violates the rights of thousands of people who should be returning to their communities and rebuilding their lives but instead remain incarcerated.”
ACLU Senior Counsel Arthur Spitzer said 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.”
“This law has been on the books for six years,” he added, so the BOP “has had plenty of time to understand it. Law enforcers should obey the law.” See: Crowe v. Bur. of Prisons, USDC (D.D.C.), Case No. 1:24-cv-03582.
Additional source: Forbes
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