New Details about Advanced Supervised Release

The Justice Reinvestment Act created a new early release program called Advanced Supervised Release (ASR). In short, the law allows certain prison inmates to get out of prison early if they complete “risk reduction incentives” while they are incarcerated. I wrote about the basics of the law here, and covered a glitch in the law’s effective date here. Based on the frequency of questions I’m getting about ASR the law is starting to be used more often. As of a few weeks ago, about 70 sentences entered around the state have included an ASR date. Those cases come out of fewer than 20 counties, with Gaston, Johnston, and Henderson accounting for over half. Some judges and prosecutors have said they won’t feel comfortable ordering ASR dates until they learn more about the risk reduction incentives that ASR inmates will be required to complete in prison. By statute, the programs are required to consist of treatment, education, and rehabilitative programs designed to reduce prisoners’ likelihood of reoffending. G.S. 15A-1340.18(b). Up until recently I didn’t have much additional information to offer about the nature of the actual incentive programs. I had been told that for some inmates, risk reduction incentives would largely be the same types of activities that net a person earned time, like work around the prison unit. A few weeks ago the Division of Adult Correction published its first policy on ASR. Available here, it sheds a little more light on what risk reduction incentives an ASR inmate will be [...]