Credit for Work and Educational Programs in the Jail

One of the goals of the Justice Reinvestment Act is to have more misdemeanants serve their time in the county jail instead of the Department of Correction. I’ll write soon about the new rules for determining where a sentence should be served (you should disregard this prior post on that subject). In the meantime, it strikes me that some sheriffs and jailers—faced with the prospect of housing additional sentenced inmates—might like a refresher on the various credits that can be applied to a misdemeanor sentence served in the jail. (This post will not cover good time credit for impaired driving inmates because good time is not a work or education credit; it is based solely good behavior. You can read all about that here.) For misdemeanants sentenced under Structured Sentencing (which is to say almost everyone except impaired drivers), there are two broad types of credit that the jail could award: (1) earned time and meritorious time credit pursuant to statewide regulations and (2) credit for work or educational programming pursuant to the sheriff or jail administrator’s authority under G.S. 162-60. The Department of Correction (DOC) sets the rules on earned time and meritorious time, and under G.S. 148-13(e), those regulations “shall be distributed to and followed by local jail administrators with regard to sentenced jail prisoners.” The latest version (May 2011) of the regulation is available here. According to the regulation, jails have a responsibility to establish procedures for granting, approving, and documenting all sentence credits. DOC Policy & Procedure [...]