Sentence Credits Applied to Post-Release Supervision

Sentence credits are the days of credit the prison system can award to inmates as an incentive for good behavior, work, or participation in programs in prison. The main sentence reduction credit for sentences imposed under Structured Sentencing is earned time. Earned time reduces an inmate’s maximum sentence, hastening his or her release from prison to post-release supervision. Can it also reduce the person’s term of post-release supervision? I have been asked that a lot lately, probably due to a boilerplate motion circulating through the prisons. Some of you have probably seen it. The motion asks a judge to apply the defendant’s “extra” earned time toward his or her post-release supervision period, reducing it from 9, 12, or 60 months, as the case may be, to some shorter length. What is “extra” earned time? I think the motion is referring to any earned time the inmate might have accrued after his or her release date had already been reduced to the minimum sentence. Once the inmate reaches the minimum, no further reductions are possible, because—aside from a very few exceptions, like Advanced Supervised Release—no Structured Sentencing inmate can be released before the minimum. With that in mind, I think the inmate is asking the court to cash out whatever surplus earned time might have accrued and use it to reduce not the remaining term of imprisonment, but rather the PRS supervision period itself. It’s not a crazy argument. In fact, there are statutes that theoretically allow for something like this to [...]