Dear John,

Today, The Sentencing Project released a new brief: “The First Step Act: Ending Mass Incarceration in Federal Prisons.” The brief highlights the success of the First Step Act, bipartisan legislation signed into law in 2018, which promotes rehabilitation and reduces some excessive sentences in the federal prison system. The First Step Act has been a critical means of reducing excess incarceration while prioritizing community safety.

The report outlines the positive impacts of the First Step Act, including:

Lower Recidivism: The recidivism rate among people who have benefitted from the First Step Act is considerably lower than those who were released from prison without the benefit of the law. Though not an exact comparison between the two groups, among those whose release has been expedited by the First Step Act, nearly nine in every 10 have not been rearrested or reincarcerated, whereas the typical recidivism rate is 43% among people released from federal prison.
Creating Earned Time Credits: The First Step Act created earned time credits, which allow eligible people in federal prisons to earn credits for participation in rehabilitative programs and activities.
Expanding Good Time Credits: Individuals in federal prisons earn good time credits for good behavior. The First Step Act expanded good time credits, allowing incarcerated individuals to earn up to 54 days of good time credit for every year of their sentence.
Amending Compassionate Release: The First Step Act allows individuals who present extraordinary and compelling circumstances, such as severe illness and/or old age, and who pose little risk to the community, to bring their compassionate release applications directly to a federal judge. Compassionate release was available before 2018, but infrequently used because of its poor design and implementation challenges.

Despite its success, the First Step Act has suffered from numerous challenges in implementation which have limited its impact and effectiveness. The Sentencing Project urges the Bureau of Prisons to fully implement the First Step Act to increase its beneficial impact and for Congress to build on it’s success by passing the bipartisan First Step Implementation Act, the Safer Detention Act, and the EQUAL Act.