Getting in trouble

An incident report.

Every prohibited act has a code and every code sits in one of four severity tiers, and the tier is what decides what it costs you. Minor ones stop at the UDC. Anything serious goes to the DHO, who is the only person who can take your good time.

You tell them you did not do it and you hope the hearing officer does not care whether you did.

You are entitled to a staff representative and to call witnesses, and both are worth requesting in writing even when it feels pointless, because the written record is what any later appeal runs on.

There is a formal process. It rarely works and it is still worth doing, because the written record is what makes anything later possible.

A DHO decision skips the institution and goes straight to the Regional Director, then to General Counsel. The clock on it is short. PS 1330.18, the Administrative Remedy Program is the whole chain, annotated.

Up to 27 days for a high-severity offense. The top tier is worse.

The numbers are set by regulation, at 28 C.F.R. 541.3, and they are worth knowing before you are standing in something:

• Greatest severity, the 100 codes. Ordinarily 27 to 41 days of good conduct time disallowed, and up to twelve months of disciplinary segregation. Assault, escape, a weapon, a phone.
• High severity, the 200 codes. Ordinarily 14 to 27 days, and up to six months of segregation. Fighting, drugs, stealing.
• Moderate severity, the 300 codes. Ordinarily up to 14 days, and up to three months.
• Low severity, the 400 codes. Ordinarily up to 7 days, and only on a second violation of the same code inside six months.

That is the disallowance of the 54 days available to you for that year. Forfeiting good time you have already banked is a separate and harsher sanction that sits on the same table.

The time calculator will show you what any of that does to the actual date.

It is a unit of cells, usually two beds to a cell. You are in there twenty-three hours a day with an hour out, if you are lucky. None of your property. One book from a cart that already sucks.

To shower, three officers escort you, cuffed at the wrists and the ankles.

Yes. Pending-investigation placement does not require you to have done anything, and it can last weeks.

It also stops your First Step Act credits while you are in there, which is the part nobody mentions.

It is complicated. Disciplinary history, a change in your points, bed space, and decisions that are never explained to you.

The points part is at least legible: PS 5100.08 is the scoring system, and your case manager can print you your current sheet.

Avoid them. There is no version of this you win by engaging.

You can. I do not advise it.

Worth separating two things: filing a remedy about your release date, your programming, or your medical care is a tool you should absolutely use. Filing on a staff member for how they treated you rarely gets you what you want and reliably makes you visible in a way you do not want to be.

Working with staff is the longer version of why.