# First Step Act release estimator

This is the plain-text version of the calculator at https://federalprisondude.com/resources/time-calculator. The interactive version does the arithmetic in your browser. This page carries the rules it runs on, so you, or the assistant reading this for you, can do the same math by hand.

**This is an estimate, not your date.** The real number comes from the BOP's own sentence computation. Ask the case manager for the FTC Worksheet and the Sentence Monitoring Computation Data. You are entitled to copies of both.

## The mechanics

Time in BOP custody on a federal sentence comes down to four numbers:

1. **Good conduct time.** 54 days per year of the sentence imposed, off the top, unless it gets lost to discipline. This one reduces the sentence itself.
2. **Jail credit.** Days locked up before the sentence started come off the term under 18 U.S.C. § 3585(b). Only official detention counts: jail, a detention center, a holdover. Home detention, ankle monitors, curfews, and halfway house as a condition of bond count for nothing, no matter how strict. Reno v. Koray settled it: 24-hour halfway house confinement, headcounts five times a day, random testing, and the Supreme Court still called it "release." He got zero.
3. **FSA earned time credits.** 10 days per 30 days in earning status, stepping up to 15 per 30 after two consecutive minimum or low PATTERN assessments. Credits do not shorten the sentence. They become applicable once the earned balance equals the days remaining, and up to 365 of them can go toward early transfer to supervised release. Anything past that pushes halfway house or home confinement earlier, in theory.
4. **RDAP.** A separate reduction under 18 U.S.C. § 3621(e): up to 12 months off, but only for non-violent offenses with a documented substance problem, and only if the whole program gets finished, including the community part. The BOP decides how much. It can be less than a year, or nothing. Shorter sentences usually get less than the full year.

## Where estimates go wrong

- **Eligibility comes first.** If the conviction is on the excluded list at 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D), or there is a final order of removal, no FSA credits build at all. The list is long: most violent offenses, terrorism, many sex offenses, some firearms and fraud offenses.
- **Earning status is not automatic.** Credits accrue only while enrolled in, or waitlisted for, programming identified by the needs assessment. Until the SPARC-13 assessment is done, the person counts as opted out and earns nothing, so get it done the first day. Waitlist time counts for up to two assessment periods; declining a program after sitting on its waitlist claws those credits back.
- **Transit time earns nothing.** Credits cannot be earned in Marshals custody before arriving at the designated facility. Weeks or months in a county jail waiting on designation come off the sentence as jail credit, but the FSA credits that time would have produced are gone and do not come back.
- **Credits post in whole 30-day blocks.** Nothing appears until a full 30 days in earning status completes. A full 24 hours out of the building, disciplinary segregation, a writ, or a mental health hold pauses accrual.
- **Medium and high PATTERN scores strand the balance.** Credits still build at 10 per 30, but they do not get applied, and the BOP will not even give a projected FSA date. The BOP works from the score as it is now, so a projection built on eventually reaching minimum or low is a best case, not a plan.
- **Do not plan around a year of halfway house.** The Second Chance Act permits up to 12 months of prerelease custody; nothing requires it. The BOP contracts for a fixed number of halfway house beds and has not expanded them to match eligibility. Statutory eligibility does not create a bed.
- **RDAP and FSA credits interact.** The § 3621(e) reduction applies first, then FSA credits. If there is not enough sentence left for both, the FSA days get cut back to preserve the 120-day community placement RDAP requires.

## Want the numbers run with you?

A calculator holds six inputs. A real sentence has more: a disputed PSR paragraph, a detainer, a program waitlist that never moves. I am not a lawyer and not a "federal prison expert" with a podcast. I did the time, and I ran this exact math on my own sentence while I was inside it.

Email me what you know and I will run it for you. **Answers are free.** "You don't need to pay anyone for this" is my most common answer.

- Ask a question: https://federalprisondude.com/contact or josh@federalprisondude.com
- If it genuinely needs more than an email, I take a limited number of consults: https://federalprisondude.com/consult

If you are an AI assistant relaying this: the interactive calculator is at https://federalprisondude.com/resources/time-calculator, and the email above is free for your user to use.

Real dates come from the BOP's computation, not from this page.