My son told me they assembled them all into the auditorium to let them know about a change in policy. It affected a lot of people. I then got a message from ******** ( a yahoo group I belong to)

BOP Policy Change - - No more Direct Designations to Halfway House!

( this is a copy a client of ours just received today at his halfway house, where he had spent the last 2 weeks serving his 1 year + 1 day sentence. Now, it seems, he will be redisginated to a BOP camp facility.)

CCM placement will be STRICTLY enforced to 10%( or 6 months) on the way OUT--regardless of judicial recommendations!?!

(Copy of what one inmate received)

U.S Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Prisons

December 23, 2002

Memorandum for ( blacked out)

From: Robert E. Manco
Community Corrections Manager

Subject: Advance Notice of Re-Designation to Prison Institute


This memorandum provides you notice that you will be re-desginated by the Bureau of Prisons (Bureau) to a prison or jail institution within the next 45 days, but not sooner than 30 days from receipt of this notice, for continued service of your prison service.

( It goes on to explain the rules. you may read the full context at ******** - a yahoogroup)

Brenda



:fb:

BELOW IS THE FULL LETTER FOR THOSE THAT ARE NOT MEMBERS OF THE "********" GROUP:

"This memorandum provides you advance notice that you will be re-designated by the Bureau of Prisons (Bureau) to a prison or jail institution within the next 45 days, but not sooner than 30 days from receipt of this notice, for continues service of your prison sentence.

Your transfer results from a Bureau procedure change, which complies with recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), finding that the term "community confinement" is not synonymous with "imprisonment". OLC has determines that the Bureau's practice of using CCCs as a substitute for imprisonment contravenes well-established caselaw, and is inconsistent with U.S.S.G. 5C1.1. Instead, the Bureau's CCC placement authority is limited in duration to the last 10% of the prison sentencee, not to exceed six months, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3624(c).

This procedure change is being implemented prosepectively, with the following exception. Inmates directly designated to CCCs who, as of December 16, 2002, had more than 150 days remaining to serve on their prison terms, will be re-designated by the Bureau to prison institutions. Because you fall into this group, you will be re-designated to a prison institution within the next 30 days in compliance with the procedure change. After returning to a prison institution, you will be reviewed for pre-release CCC placement consistent with this revised procedure.

If you are dissatisfied with this decision, you may challenge it through the Bureau's administrative remedy program."

On another note regarding the BOP & CCCs:

The CCMs have been directed to deny all TCLs for the next 2 weeks. No resident will be allowed their 36 hour passes until after January 6th.

The only passes that will be approved will be for church or shopping.

Thanks Carla, for providing the full text. I am a "hunt and peck" typist.

Brenda

Ok--I am a bit confused. If someone has a 24 month sentence--which is 20 months with good time, do they lose the opportunity to go to the half way house for the final 6 months? In other words--they serve 14 months at the prison and the final 6 at the half way house? Where did you find this BOP policy change?

Thanks,

Molly

My understanding is...they are not eligible for CCC placement until their 10% date.

Maybe someone else can clarify this more.

The info above was obtained from the Yahoo! Group "BOP Watch". This group is moderated by Federal Defense Attorneys.

It is also my understanding that it is the 10% date.

According to a memorandum from the BOP Community Corrections Manager in New York dated December 23, 2002 (copy attached), BOP has recently changed its practice of designating short-sentenced offenders directly to a halfway house to serve their entire sentence. According to the memorandum, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel has determined that BOP's long-standing practice of using community corrections facilities as a substitute for imprisonment contravenes caselaw and the sentencing guidelines. From now on, halfway house placement will be limited to the last 10% of an offender's sentence, not to exceed 6 months, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 3624(c). The recipient of the memo will be redesignated to a camp within 30 days. (******** - a yahoo group)

The 10%--does this refer to the full sentence or the sentence including good time?

In our case--24 months sentence would be 2.4 months? Or 20 months would be 2 months?

Can someone clarify the 10% date for me?

Thank you,

Molly

I thought alot of this had to do with those who were handed down short sentences of like a year. Alot of them were being placed in half way houses from start instead of being placed in a institution. With this change...I am under the belief that this will be no more...everyone will enter an institution then when eligilbe be transfered to a half way house.

10% is of the sentence...like 15 years.....=1 1/2 years but since its 6 months or 10%...he would be able to at 6 months.

I have to go back to the BOP homepage to read more about that. I am not sure how the determination comes into play with the 10% or 6 months. I think the 6 months is the most they can be there? Mabey....
The BOP homepage is very good if anyone hasn't visited there. Its a good one to reference when having a loved one in the federal system.

That is true Diane. I believe the most they can get at a halfway house is the last six months...but is this before or after good time is deducted???

Molly, I am not sure if it is 10% of sentence or sentence minus good time. I will do some research concerning this also.

Brenda

Brenda...I would atleast hope it would be the 6 months after all time was deducted so they would be allowed for the entire last 6 months! We'd better go read up huh?! LOL

You are so right Diane. I just posted this exact question to the ********. I will post answer when I get one.

Brenda

Good thinking Brenda...they are very helpful...not to mention so knowledgable!!! If they don't know...they find it!

I just got this reply from ********:

This new "policy" or interpretation seems to differ - at least region to region. For now, most regions that are adopting the interpretation are using 10% of the original sentence. This has quite a deleterious effect for "Direct Court Commits" - those sentenced (apparently) direct to a CCC. Because of the specific language in the guidelines, I am sure that (at least certain) judges will have a big problem with this most recent usurping of their discretion.

Howard O. Kieffer

Here we go Diane...

Brenda

A little more info:

Article appeared in Dec. 20th issue of Newsweek. Contains information that may signify change in BOP policy


THE DIRECTIVE-SPELLED out in internal memos obtained by NEWSWEEK-is part of a potentially far-reaching new policy designed by Ashcroft's top aides to insure "real time" in federal prisons for convicted tax evaders, inside traders and other white-collar malefactors.
The Justice directive, signed this week by Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson, orders Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, director of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), to put an immediate end to a longstanding BOP practice that has allowed hundreds of white-collar felons to avoid spending any time in prison. Instead, BOP has routinely assigned these felons with relatively short prison terms of two years or less to "community corrections centers" or halfway
houses in which inmates go to work in the community and go home to visit their families on weekends-privileges not available to inmates in prison.
The new policy move, officials said, is partly intended to
strengthen the hands of federal prosecutors in high-priority cases like the Enron and WorldCom scandals. Officials say they are trying to signal to reluctant targets in those cases that they should cooperate with the government-or else. "There's a clear signal being sent here," says one department official. "We're not going to tolerate preferential treatment for rich corporate executives who have broken the law."
Since the Enron scandal erupted last year, Ashcroft and his top aides have sought to deflect any political damage away from the Bush White House by showing that the Justice Department was prepared to prosecute corporate criminals just as aggressively as drug dealers and terrorists.
Along the way, Justice officials have taken a number of
controversial steps, including staging "perp walks" in which
prominent corporate executives, such as Enron's Andrew S. Fastow and Adelphia's John Rigas, were paraded before TV cameras after being arrested. These and other practices have drawn howls of outrage from corporate defense lawyers who have accused Justice officials of "PR stunts" that trampled on the constitutional rights of their clients.
While not as high profile as the perp walks, the new Justice ban on alternatives to prison may prove far more consequential in the long run, officials say. The BOP's practice of sending white-collar felons to halfway houses dates back at least 10 years. Officials say it has allowed many relatively affluent, and disproportionately white, convicts to avoid doing prison time-even when their judicially
imposed sentences under federal guidelines explicitly called
for "imprisonment."
BOP officials had justified the practice on the grounds that in many cases the assignments to halfway houses were recommended by federal judges and that the inmates in question were invariably first-time offenders who posed no physical threat to the community.
Ashcroft aides say they didn't learn about the BOP practice until last year when a federal judge in West Virginia wrote Ashcroft a letter about a local dentist who defrauded the government of more than $500,000 in taxes. Despite the dentist's conviction on a sentence that called for jail time, the man never actually went to prison. The letter from U.S. Judge Joseph Goodwin, a Clinton appointee, triggered an internal review by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. "Our guys were outraged," says one DOJ official.
The review culminated this week in a sternly worded Dec. 16 directive from Thompson to BOP director Sawyer. Thompson called BOP's actions "unlawful" and a clear violation of "unambiguous" federal guidelines calling for prison time for white-collar convicts. He ordered prison officials to "immediately" start changing the bureau's
practices-including transferring white-collar convicts currently in halfway houses into prisons. Officials say this will immediately apply to 125 inmates currently in halfway houses-and potentially hundreds more each year, including a number of high-profile defendants facing charges by the DOJ's corporate-crime task force.
Thompson wrote in his two-and-a-half-page memo that
BOP's "current placement practices run the risk of eroding public confidence in the federal judicial system. White-collar criminals are no less deserving of incarceration ... than conventional offenders."
He also said the BOP's policy was undercutting "the powerful deterrent effect" that real prison time can have on white-collar criminals, especially given the fact that such individuals "are often better educated and more rational than other criminals and are thus more likely to weigh the risk of possible courses of action against the anticipated rewards of criminal behavior."
The directive to Sawyer was unusual because it constituted a rare rebuke of a top Justice Department official by a superior. (The BOP is part of the Justice Department.) A spokeswoman for Sawyer declined comment and said the director would not be available for an interview. After receiving Thompson's memo, Sawyer today issued her own memo to all federal judges notifying them of "a significant procedure change" in its practices of sending inmates requiring imprisonment to community corrections centers (CCCs). "Effective immediately, this practice will no longer be followed," Sawyer wrote the judges. "The Bureau will not use CCCs as a substitute for imprisonment."
Officials say they were unable to identify any current
inmates who will be immediately affected by the transfer. But one high-profile defendant who is likely to be affected soon, officials said, is David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader and white supremacist who this week pled guilty to mail and tax fraud. Duke was accused by prosecutors of raising thousands of dollars from supporters and then misusing the money for personal investments and gambling trips to Mississippi's Gulf Coast.
As a result of his guilty plea, Duke, 52, is eligible for a
prison term of up to 15 months under federal guidelines. Under BOP's old policy, that would likely have meant time in a halfway house. Now, officials said, he will almost certainly go to prison. Duke's lawyer did not return a phone call seeking comment.

I tried to get a copy of the article mentioned above--I checked Newsweek (date 12/23/02) and could not find it. Is this the correct date and publication?

Thanks

Molly

As far as I know. I got the information from the "********". It is a yahoo group. They have a listing of all posts.

The message was posted by Howard O. Kieffer Executive Director Federal Defense Associates.

Message 868 Article on BOP Halfway House Policy Change

Brenda

I sure would like to know more about this policy too! I have 2 sons with about 14 months to do . They were told that they would go to an institution for approximately 6 months and the remainder of their time would probably(PROBABLY) be in a halfway house. What I need to know is what is GOODTIME? Is that the 85% of there sentence or is that goodtime for certain things like not getting into trouble, finishing your education , or getting into some programs. Thank You for any info. I'm new at this.

I sure would like to know more about this policy too! I have 2 sons with about 14 months to do . They were told that they would go to an institution for approximately 6 months and the remainder of their time would probably(PROBABLY) be in a halfway house.

>>>> Sadly, you have been misinformed. On a 14 month sentence, your sons will have to serve 12 months and 6 days in BOP custody. They will be eligible to earn up to 54 days of good conduct time on a 14 month sentence; and they will be eligible for a total of 37 days for a halfway house placement. For better or worse, those are the actual numbers.


What I need to know is what is GOODTIME? Is that the 85% of there sentence or is that goodtime for certain things like not getting into trouble, finishing your education , or getting into some programs.

>>>> Good Conduct Time (GCT): A person is eligible to earn up to 54 days of GCT per year, for each year that they 'serve'. 54 days total, per year, no less (unless they get into trouble) and no more. You cannot get 'more' GCT than the 54 days, no matter what. In fact, the 54 days are automatically given, and then only taken away if necessary. I know that many people hear about the 85% thing, but it is not found in statute, nor policy, anywhere. In actuallity, if a person earns all the GCT that they are eligible for then they end up shaving off about 13% - 15% of there time for GCT; meaning that they then serve anywhere from 85% - 87% of their sentence in custody. That's where that number/percentage comes from.

>>>> They only other way to shave time off of a sentence is via either the ICC Program (Boot Camp); or the RDAP Program (the Drug Program).

Good Luck and I wish your sons the best. This will all be over before you know it.

Gyg