Good Time, Bureau of Prisons Style

The Supreme Court issued its opinion in Barber v. Thomas on Monday, upholding the manner in which the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) calculates “good time credits” under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b). That law says that a prisoner who is serving a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year can receive up to 54 days of credit for good behavior at the end of each year of his or her term, plus prorated credit for the last year of the term. BOP applies that law in a way that grants well-behaved inmates 54 days for each year served, plus whatever credit the inmate has time to earn in the last year of confinement before release. In its opinion, the Court uses “some elementary algebra” to illustrate how a perfectly-behaved inmate with a 10-year sentence can, under the BOP’s approach, earn up to 470 days of good time credit. That’s 54 days for each of the first 8 years (8 x 54 = 432), plus 38 days in Year 9, which is the most the inmate could earn in that ninth year before the actual time served plus good time credit earned equals 10 years, necessitating the inmate’s release. 432 + 38 = 470. No credit is earned in Year 10 because the inmate gets released part-way through Year 9. The petitioners, a group of federal prisoners, didn’t read the statute that way. Instead, they favored an approach in which an inmate sentenced to a 10-year term of imprisonment could earn [...]