This week hurt… it still hurts and unfortunately I have a sickening feeling that it is going to continue hurting before it gets better. It is the kind of week… with the kind of news… that makes you drop your chin… shake your head… take that deep labored breath and the words “F*ck man”… fall out of your mouth. With that same labored breath as I type this today… let me explain.
I have to begin with a bit of mechanics and I apologize as there is no way around it besides some ‘inside baseball’ so here we go. The way that a federal inmate’s release date is calculated is: total sentence… minus 15% of that sentence for Good Time Credits… minus up to 12 months of Half Way House per The Second Chance Act (depending on length of your sentence aka the longer the sentence the closer to that 12 month mark you will get). If you qualify for The First Step Act then you subtract 12 months for First Step Credits…. 12 months for completion of the Residential Drug and Alcohol Program (RDAP) and 15 days per month of your total sentence toward Home Confinement. Now the only part of this that every single khaki suit within the federal system has the right to receive is their Good Time Credits that they only lose through bad behavior and their right to adequate half way house time through The Second Chance Act in order for them to successfully transition back into society after years of incarceration. Until now…
This past Tuesday morning… this “right” to adequate half way house time was unceremoniously slashed from 12 months to a maximum of 60 days (if you have not completed RDAP) or 125 days (if you have completed RDAP). “60 days? This cannot be real. Do they mean 60 days less so like 10 months?”… was the sentiment I heard repeatedly throughout this past week. But No… that is not what they meant… they mean 60 days… 2 months. Apparently the BOP (Bureau of Prisons) requested an increased budget for fiscal year 2025 and that request was denied leaving them with the same amount of money ($8.3B) that they had in 2024. Because of this fact… the powers that be decided that budget cuts were necessary and the first place that they felt they could “cut costs” was through the half way houses. So… in a sweeping… life altering right hook to the chin… they emailed every single facility around the country and stated that… “As of April 21, 2025… any inmate that was to be released to the Half Way House in 2025 will now receive a maximum of 60 days as opposed to the previous maximum of 12 months.” This means that guys behind these gates and the families and children of guys behind these gates that have been day dreaming and planning and expecting and waiting for that coveted day to finally arrive… is now (in most cases) 10 months away. These are guys that were supposed to leave days from now… with actual release dates and itineraries taped on their locker door. Their families and kids were counting down the days with them to meet them outside these gates and finally be done with this chapter of their lives’. And now… because of absolutely NOTHING that they did to lose this time… because of “budget cuts”… they are no longer leaving within days but sometime in 2026. That… man… that is absolutely devastating to witness.
There is a sadness… a feeling of loss or trauma… permeating throughout the compound this week and I have to imagine throughout every compound around the country. Being incarcerated is such a mental battle field. We are constantly playing mental gymnastics with ourselves about how much time we have left… what grade our kids will be in when we get out… how old we will be… how old they will be… will we be out for that holiday or his birthday? These little puzzle pieces we constantly mentally build on a daily basis toward the completion of the picture is how we survive this psychologically traumatic part our life. And this “survival” is based on a few factors… number one being the health and stability of our “tribe” on the outside… number two being our bond and on going relationships with our “tribe” out there and number three is knowing that if we just make it through the days… that magical day… THE day… will eventually arrive and when it does… we will be back with them… breathing free air once again. And when that day gets ripped from under us so close to the door… it breaks people. It feels like a whole new prison term. One guy put it this way… “If I had known at the beginning of my sentence that I would have to do 10 more months… I could wrap my head around that. My family could wrap their head around that. But when my daughter has been planning on me teaching her how to start driving in 3 weeks and now I have to call her and tell her that I won’t be there and I won’t be there next month… or the month after that. That I won’t be there until next February. I can’t wrap my head that… I just can’t let her down again. I have been letting her down for 9 years and now I have to do it again. I can’t.” This sentiment is one that I have heard in different variations from many guys throughout the week… and it breaks my heart.
So… what’s the answer? Unfortunately… I cannot answer that but I have to imagine that it is in the realm of the same answer to many of the issues that plague our society at the moment. Rather than rash… seemingly emotional… drastic… sweeping… umbrella decisions such as mass deportations without due process… massive firings…. whole department closures… blanket tariffs…. maybe we take a beat and attempt to identify the real problems and thoughtfully find solutions. I have to believe that “budget cuts” within the BOP could be successfully implemented in MANY (and I mean many) departments or divisions outside of the one piece of the process that not only impacts the guilty party but equally impacts their innocent families and society at large. The half way house is the one piece of the puzzle that provides support and guidance for an individual to successfully transition back to reality after years (or decades) incarcerated. This transition allows for the individual to find a job… obtain a license… get insurance… find a place to live… learn how to function as a contributing member of society again and ultimately lower the potential for re-offending… which is the goal…. right? And this simply cannot be done in 60 days.
My hope is that someone with enough ‘juice’ realizes this objective fact and course corrects. Whether that correction looks like the person in the half way house using a percentage of their income to “pay rent” while housed there or some other option that works within the constraints of “budget cuts”. But the current course of taking the astronauts straight from space and dropping them onto the street with a prison ID and a pat on the back…. is not going to work.
I stay hopeful because it is the only option…
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Stay Positive.