What PATTERN is: a scoring sheet the Bureau of Prisons fills out on every person in federal custody, twice a year or so. It adds up things like age, criminal history, write-ups, and completed programs, and spits out a risk level: minimum, low, medium, or high.
Why it matters more than almost anything else:First Step Act credits only get applied if that level is minimum or low. At medium or high the credits still pile up, but they sit there unused and the Bureau won't even give you a projected release date. Getting from medium down to low is often worth more months than anything else available.
Your loved one's case manager scores this, and people are rarely told how it works. The form is public though, so you can score it yourself and see exactly what's driving the number, and which parts can still be changed.
Before you start
You'll want the presentence report (the PSR) for the criminal history points, and some idea of their write-up history and finished programs. If you don't have all of it, guess. You'll still learn which items are doing the damage. Nothing you type here is sent anywhere; the math runs in your browser.
One more thing: men and women are scored on completely different forms, with different items and different point values. Pick the right one or the number will be wrong.
Male risk items
How old they are right now, not how old they were when the offense happened. This is the heaviest item on the form and the one nobody can do anything about.
The Adam Walsh Act covers certain sex offenses. If the conviction falls under it, answer yes. If you have never heard it mentioned in the case, it almost certainly does not apply, but ask the case manager to be sure.
The Bureau keeps its own list of what counts as violent, and it is broader than you would guess. A lot of firearms cases and some drug cases are on it. The full list is further down this page. If the offense of conviction is on it, answer yes.
From the presentence report (the PSR). You want the number of criminal history POINTS, not the Roman-numeral category. It is in the criminal history section, usually stated as a total. No prior record at all is normally 0 - 1.
Walking away from a camp or a halfway house counts as an escape. The Bureau decides whether it was minor or serious; most walkaways get scored minor. Go by the most recent one, and pick None if there has never been one.
Any documented violent incident, inside prison or out in the world. Count from the most recent one. If there has never been one, pick None.
Signing up for the GED counts before it is finished, so this one moves fast. A high school diploma earned decades ago still counts.
DAP is the Bureau's drug program. RDAP is the long residential one people talk about; NRDAP is the shorter non-residential version. "No need" means the Bureau assessed them and found no substance problem, and that scores best of all.
Incident reports are the write-ups people call "shots." Count every one in the last ten years, at any severity. A late count and a fight both belong here.
Only the ones the Bureau grades Greatest or High severity, meaning fighting, weapons, drugs, or escape. A messy room or a missed count is not this.
How long since the most recent shot of any kind. Clean time is worth real points here, so this improves on its own.
The Financial Responsibility Program is the payment plan for court-ordered fines and restitution. Refusing to sign up is a choice some people make, and it costs points here as well as privileges inside.
Bureau programs actually finished and recorded, like classes, ACE courses, and parenting. These subtract from the score, so they help.
Work assignments held, like food service, orderly, or UNICOR. These subtract too.
Female risk items
How old they are right now, not how old they were when the offense happened. This is the heaviest item on the form and the one nobody can do anything about.
The Bureau keeps its own list of what counts as violent, and it is broader than you would guess. A lot of firearms cases and some drug cases are on it. The full list is further down this page. If the offense of conviction is on it, answer yes.
From the presentence report (the PSR). You want the number of criminal history POINTS, not the Roman-numeral category. It is in the criminal history section, usually stated as a total. No prior record at all is normally 0 - 1.
Walking away from a camp or a halfway house counts as an escape. The Bureau decides whether it was minor or serious; most walkaways get scored minor. Go by the most recent one, and pick None if there has never been one.
Any documented violent incident, inside prison or out in the world. Count from the most recent one. If there has never been one, pick None.
Signing up for the GED counts before it is finished, so this one moves fast. A high school diploma earned decades ago still counts.
DAP is the Bureau's drug program. RDAP is the long residential one people talk about; NRDAP is the shorter non-residential version. "No need" means the Bureau assessed them and found no substance problem, and that scores best of all.
Incident reports are the write-ups people call "shots." Count every one in the last ten years, at any severity. A late count and a fight both belong here. On the women's form this one only affects the general score, not the violent score.
How long since the most recent shot of any kind. Clean time is worth real points here, so this improves on its own.
Same question, but only counting the serious ones (Greatest or High severity).
The Financial Responsibility Program is the payment plan for court-ordered fines and restitution. Refusing to sign up is a choice some people make, and it costs points here as well as privileges inside.
Bureau programs actually finished and recorded, like classes, ACE courses, and parenting. These subtract from the score, so they help.
Work assignments held, like food service, orderly, or UNICOR. These subtract too.
Result
0General scoreMinimum
0Violent scoreMinimum
Overall PATTERN levelMinimumThe higher of the two
This is the form, not your file
Your real score comes from the BOP, off records you cannot fully see: incident history, criminal history points as scored in the PSR, and program completions that may not be recorded yet. Use this to understand what moves the number, then ask your case manager for your actual PATTERN worksheet. You are entitled to a copy.
What actually moves the score
Age and criminal history points dominate, and neither is something you can change. The items you can move are at the bottom of the form: finish the GED, complete RDAP or NRDAP, complete programs, hold a work assignment, stay clear of incident reports, and don't refuse FRP. Those are all negative numbers, so they subtract.
Note how differently the two instruments weigh the same fact. A violent-offense flag adds 5 general / 7 violent for men, but 1 general / 3 violent for women. Criminal history points top out at 40 general on both, but only 5 violent for women against 15 for men.
Violent offense codes used by PATTERN
If the offense of conviction is in here, answer "Yes" to the violent offense item. The BOP revises this list, and it covers qualifying military and non-federal offenses too.
Category
Federal offenses (and qualifying military or non-federal equivalents)
Because the law changes, this list gets revised. Talk to your attorney about anything that turns on whether an offense qualifies.
Cut points (PATTERN v1.3)
Scale
Minimum
Low
Medium
High
Male, general
5 or less
6 – 39
40 – 54
55 or more
Male, violent
7 or less
8 – 24
25 – 31
32 or more
Female, general
7 or less
8 – 38
39 – 52
53 or more
Female, violent
1 or less
2 – 11
12 – 17
18 or more
Scored from the BOP's own male and female PATTERN risk scoring forms and the v1.3 cut point sheet. Nothing here is legal advice, and this page does not send your answers anywhere, because the math runs in your browser.
Need help with this? Just ask.
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This page is also available as Markdown at /resources/pattern-calculator.md. A Markdown index of this site for language models is at /llms.txt, and the full site text is at /llms-full.txt.