Legal Battles & Legislative Updates
Stay informed on lawsuits against the BOP, pending legislation, and court rulings impacting prison conditions. This category tracks progress and setbacks in the fight for justice, offering analysis of how legal strategies shape systemic reform.
The BOP Has a First Step Act Office Now. The Tablets Could Make It Matter.
The Bureau of Prisons created a First Step Act Office that reports to the Director and owns time credits nationwide. The credits it awards for willingness are defensible, and they buy more than classwork: work, mentoring, clean conduct and a maintained low risk assessment all earn credit. What the Bureau has never had is a way to deliver the programming, and the Securus tablet rollout is the chance to build one.
Read more
Eleven Comments, One Blind Spot: What the Public Told the BOP About Time Credits
The First Step Act time credits rule takes effect September 30, the same day comments close. The eleven comments on the docket all back the rule and all point at the same gap: what happens at the back end of a sentence.
Read more
Compassionate Release Is Quietly Dying in Federal Court
The Sentencing Commission counted 195 compassionate release grants in nine months. The First Circuit granted half of the motions it decided, the Eighth granted 4 percent, and two Supreme Court decisions in May closed two of the routes that were still working.
Read more
BOP Expands First Step Act Time Credits After Courts Told It To
A new BOP rule lets inmates start earning First Step Act time credits at sentencing instead of arrival at a facility, and extends eligibility to treaty-transfer inmates. Courts forced the change. Comments close September 30.
Read more
The Albarati Act Won't Stop Contraband Phones. It Will Just Clog the Courts.
S. 736 doubles the maximum sentence for smuggling a cell phone into a federal prison and makes it a felony. Against 20,000 phones a year and about 81 prosecutions, that changes nothing.
Read more
Thirteen Men Freed Under the First Step Act Face Going Back to Prison
A May Supreme Court ruling in Rutherford v. United States removed the legal basis for the compassionate release of 13 people. Matthew Charles, the first person freed under the First Step Act, says clemency is their only remaining path.
Read more