The Second Chance Act-Is the BOP Finally Implementing?

Jan. 9, 2010 - PRLog -- The Second Chance Act was implemented by Congress to help protect the rights of ex-convicts and to provide education and reentry programs to those convicts soon to be released. This in turn was thought to be a major factor in reducing the rate of recidivism. Everyone knows how important it is to reduce the rate of recidivism. Recidivism is defined as the tendency for an ex-offender to relapse into a former mode of criminal behavior, i.e., for a released inmate or ex-convict to commit another crime and go back to prison. A major aspect of the Second Chance Act was designed to improve federal prison offender reentry. This is an excellent idea but it is no good if the Bureau of Prisons doesn’t follow through and implement the law. The federal government, through Congress, provided money for new programs to assess each federal prisoner’s skill level including academic, vocational, health, cognitive, interpersonal, daily living, and related reentry skills.  Yet are these programs up and running? Ask any federal inmate if any of these programs have benefitted him and prepared him for reentry into society. His answer until recently would be a resounding NO! Nearly twenty-one months have passed and we are just now seeing action by the Bureau of Prisons. I wonder where all that taxpayer money Congress provided was hidden during the past 21 months or what it was used for other than the Second Chance Act.

   A significant aspect of the Second Chance Act that was very important to current federal inmates was to allow federal prison inmates up to one year in a halfway house to better enable them to adjust and acclimate to their reentry into the real world. Currently, federal prison inmates are only permitted 10% of their net sentence or six months of halfway house time, whichever is less. For example, if a current inmate was sentenced to thirty-six (36) months of incarceration by the courts but would only actually serve 31.5 months (due to his Good Conduct Time reduction of 12.8%); he would only be permitted a maximum of 3.15 months of halfway house. What makes it worse is that many prisoners do not receive their full 10% of eligible halfway house time. In this case, the inmate who is eligible for 3.15 months may only actually receive 1.5 to 2 months of halfway house time. The rest of the time he spends in federal prison.

   So with the passage of the Second Chance Act, we were all hopeful that eligible federal prison inmates would now receive up to 12 full months of halfway house time. Wrong!!  Well why not? At a Sentencing Commission hearing in Washington, D.C. on July 15, 2008, the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, Harley Lapin, stated he anticipated no changes to the provision of a full year of halfway house for federal inmates. He stated that “certain studies” (which we were not privy to) showed that it was not productive and it is actually less expensive to house federal inmates in a federal prison than in a halfway house.  Was the Second Chance Act designed to save money or was it about improving federal prison inmates’ reentry into society, not about the cost of incarceration? Harley, I think you got the priorities mixed up!

   “Well good news has arrived”, quipped Robin Stover, Federal Prison Consultant and founder of the Prison Consulting Group. The Bureau of Prisons has just started increasing to some extent the length of halfway house time it allows certain offenders” said Stover. Stover explained that if the inmate passed the eligibility criteria, provided the necessary documentation materials, and submitted the request in the proper way, he very well may increase the length of his stay in a halfway house. This also means less time in prison and more time with the inmate’s family as he now would have many more freedoms in a halfway house than in a prison. Stover also explained that the Prison Consulting Group is very familiar with the eligibility requirements, documentation required, and application process as they have helped numerous inmates with this process.

   Another major provision in the Second Chance Act was to allow early release to certain offenders over the age of 65 who have met certain conditions of confinement and are deemed eligible. An eligible offender is defined as an inmate who does not have a life sentence, has not committed a crime of violence or a sex offense, does not have a history of violence, has not escaped or attempted escape, and an inmate that the Federal Government has determined that early release will result in a substantial net reduction of costs to the Federal Government. If you read between the lines, those inmates eligible for early release are those federal prison inmates who are elderly, in bad health, chronically or acutely ill, and are piling up huge medical bills for the Bureau of Prisons. Yet for the inmate, it is wonderful news to think he may be eligible to be released early from prison. The Prison Consulting Group also provides assistance with inmates and their families to determine eligibility for this program and provide all the necessary paperwork and documentation required.

   Robin Stover said that it is time for the federal government to step up and fully implement all provisions of the Second Chance Act. The United States currently has the world's largest prison population. Ex-convicts are currently stripped of civil rights, denied access to loans, college financial aid, job prospects, certain licenses, and other conduits for social improvement that most of us take for granted. The most recent three-year recidivism rate is nearly 65% and it is time to fully implement the Second Chance Act. An ex-convict’s crimes haunt him forever. Felonies committed at age 20 or 21 will follow him into his sixties. White-collar criminals are receiving longer sentences and are being prosecuted more vigorously. But leaving the system like it is, without the implementation of the Second Chance Act, robs a released inmate of his civil rights including the right to legally provide for his family. Robin Stover finished by saying, ”If an inmate has paid his dues, served his time, and given his “pound of flesh”,isn’t it time he had a second chance?” I certainly think so too.

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Robin Stover is a nationally recognized Federal Prison Consultant and founder of the Prison Consulting Group (PCG). As a Federal Prison Consultant with PCG, Robin is recognized as an authority in pre-and post-conviction strategy, positioning, preparation, and education. Robin is knowledgeable in all facets of federal prison life and with the Bureau of Prisons' (BOP) rules, regulations, and program statements.

PCG prepares clients for admission to the 500-Hour Residential Drug Abuse Program which offers up to a 12 month sentence reduction and a 6 month halfway house designation. We also provide assistance with designations, judicial recommendations, transfers, furloughs, A R Appeals, Second Chance Act submissions, MINT program requests, restitution, ICE issues, and the BOP's Compassionate Release and Commutation of Sentence Program.

Prison Consulting Group offers the prison preparation course titled, "How to Survive Federal Prison", go to http://prisonconsultinggroup.com.