Signed into law in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, the bipartisan First Step Act was designed to reduce the population in federal prisons, reform extreme sentencing laws, and provide programming and reentry transition services to people in prison. Central to the First Step Act is a system of earned time credits, which allows people in prison to earn time off their sentences and time out of prison by participating in rehabilitation programs.
Through the First Step Act, Congress unambiguously ordered BOP to move people out of prison – into halfway houses, home confinement, or supervised release – when they meet certain requirements to use their earned time credits. Instead of faithfully following the mandatory law, BOP adopted a regulation treating the law as optional. As a result, thousands of people, who should already be back in their communities and with their families, remain in prison.
The lawsuit, Crowe v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, contends that the BOP and its Director’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. Filed in federal court in the District of Columbia on December 20, 2024, Crowe asks the Court to order the BOP to obey the law.
The Criminal Law Reform Project brought this lawsuit alongside ACLU-DC and Jenner & Block LLP.
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