First Step Act: Federal Prison Credits and Sentencing Changes

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The First Step Act of 2018, Public Law 115-391, changed several parts of the federal criminal justice system. Its central pieces address federal prison programming and risk assessment, selected federal sentencing laws, and support for reentry. It does not create a general right to early release, erase every mandatory minimum, or govern people serving only state sentences.

What the First Step Act changed

The Act directed the Department of Justice to create a risk-and-needs assessment system for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. BOP uses that system to classify recidivism risk and identify programming intended to address a person’s assessed needs. The law pairs participation with incentives, including a system of earned time credits for eligible federal prisoners.

The statute also changed selected sentencing provisions. It narrowed and reduced certain enhanced mandatory minimums for repeat drug offenses, broadened the federal drug “safety valve,” and limited the former practice of imposing the enhanced 25-year penalty for multiple firearm counts charged in the same case. Those sentencing changes have their own eligibility and effective-date rules, so the Act should not be read as one blanket retroactive reduction.

How First Step Act time credits work

Under 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4), an eligible prisoner earns 10 days of credit for every 30 days of successful participation in evidence-based recidivism-reduction programming or productive activities. A prisoner whom BOP classifies as minimum or low risk, and whose risk level has not increased over two consecutive assessments, earns an additional five days for each 30-day period.

Eligibility to earn credits and eligibility to apply them are separate questions. Section 3632 lists convictions that make a prisoner ineligible to receive time credits, while a final order of removal prevents application of credits toward prerelease custody or supervised release. The statute also ties transfer to the requirements in 18 U.S.C. § 3624(g), including risk-related and other conditions.

BOP states that credits may be earned only for authorized activities successfully completed on or after January 15, 2020. Credits may be lost for misconduct or violating program rules, and federal regulations provide procedures for written notice and possible restoration. These features make a credit total an administrative calculation based on the record, not a fixed reduction inferred from the original sentence alone.

Time credits and good-conduct time are different

Good-conduct time under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b) may reduce the time served on a qualifying federal prison sentence and can reach up to 54 days for each year of the sentence imposed, subject to BOP’s determination of qualifying conduct. First Step Act time credits instead move an eligible person toward prerelease custody, such as a residential reentry center or home confinement, or toward an earlier start of supervised release. The supervised-release portion may begin no more than 12 months early under § 3624(g).

That distinction matters because placement outside a prison facility is not necessarily the end of the sentence or of federal supervision. Prerelease custody remains subject to legal and administrative conditions, and supervised release is the court-ordered period that follows imprisonment.

Which sentencing changes were retroactive

Section 404 created a specific path for courts to apply sections 2 and 3 of the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 to certain covered crack-cocaine offenses committed before August 3, 2010. A court may impose a reduced sentence as though those Fair Sentencing Act provisions had been in effect when the covered offense occurred, but the First Step Act does not require a reduction.

This retroactivity provision is narrower than the Act’s prospective sentencing reforms. The Congressional Research Service describes the other changes—including revised repeat-drug-offender penalties, safety-valve expansion, and the firearm “stacking” change—as reforms subject to their own statutory applicability rules. The federal Sentencing Commission reported 4,226 granted Section 404 motions through September 30, 2021 for which it had received and processed court documentation by August 8, 2022.

Compassionate release after the Act

The First Step Act also changed the procedure in 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). After satisfying the statute’s administrative-exhaustion or 30-day route, an imprisoned person may file a motion asking the sentencing court to consider compassionate release, rather than depending exclusively on a motion from BOP. The court still applies the governing statutory standards; permission to file is not a promise of relief.

The federal boundary

The prison-credit system described here is administered by BOP for people serving federal sentences. State prison credits, parole systems, sentence-reduction procedures, and reentry programs arise under separate state law. A state conviction does not become subject to the First Step Act merely because the conduct would also violate federal law.

Sources

• First Step Act of 2018, Public Law 115-391
• 18 U.S.C. § 3632, risk and needs assessment system
• 18 U.S.C. § 3624, release and credits
• Federal Bureau of Prisons First Step Act FAQs
• Congressional Research Service overview of the First Step Act
• U.S. Sentencing Commission First Step Act retroactivity report