December 2023
Time Sentenced and Time Served
Exploring the Impact of the First Step Act
Analysis by Avinash Bhati, PhD
Passed in 2018, the First Step Act (FSA) was designed to reduce reoffending among people leaving federal prisons. A previous Council on Criminal Justice analysis, First Step Act: An Early Analysis of Recidivism, found that individuals released from Bureau of Prison (BOP) custody under the FSA had lower recidivism rates than similarly situated people who were released prior to the Act’s implementation. An additional analysis, Technically Speaking: Accounting for Technical Violations in First Step Act Recidivism, further contextualizes the recidivism rate reported for people released under the FSA. It distinguishes recidivism due to technical violations of supervision rules from cases involving new criminal activity.
This analysis examines the impact of the FSA on the amount of time served by people released under the law. Several provisions of the FSA provide opportunities for eligible people to reduce the amount of time they serve in federal prisons; such opportunities include an expansion of sentence credits and compassionate release, among others. Provisions of the FSA are summarized in a Congressional Research Service brief.
The data and assumptions made to conduct this analysis are explained in a supplemental methodology report. The analysis does not seek to evaluate the FSA or its implementation.
Time Sentenced vs. Time Served
People released under the FSA in 2022 served 7.3% less of their imposed prison term than similarly situated people released prior to the FSA.
This analysis estimates the share of the imposed prison term served by the 20,154 people released under the FSA in 2022. It compares that estimate against the share of the imposed prison term served by a group of individuals released from BOP prior to the FSA who were convicted of the same primary offense.1
People released under the FSA in 2022 are estimated to have served 82.3% of their imposed prison term, on average. An equal group of similarly situated people released from BOP before the FSA was implemented are estimated to have served an average of 89.6% of their imposed prison term. Therefore, people released under the FSA served 7.3% less of their imposed prison term, on average. As an example, prior to the implementation of the FSA a person with an imposed prison term of 60 months could expect to serve 54 months, on average. After passage of the Act, that same person could expect to serve 49 months, on average—five months less.
Without access to data on individuals, researchers made several plausible assumptions in order to produce estimates using aggregate data that has been made public by the BOP and Office of the Attorney General (OAG). Those assumptions are explained in a supplemental methodology report.
Notes: Data presented here represent findings for a similarly situated group of people released before and after implementation of the FSA. These data do not reflect the share of imposed sentence served for all people in BOP custody.
Reductions in Time Served
Release dates were advanced by less than one year for 92% of people released under the FSA in 2022.
The percentage change in the share of the imposed prison term that people serve translates into a reduction in actual time served behind bars. This allows for a comparison of an expected release date both under the FSA and prior to the Act’s implementation.
Fewer than 5% of all people released under the FSA in 2022 advanced their release date by more than 15 months. For 92% of people released under the Act in 2022, the release date was advanced by less than one year. The release date for 70% of people released under the FSA in 2022 was advanced by less than six months. Finally, the release date for 40% of people released under the FSA in 2022 was advanced by less than three months.
Conclusions and Limitations
The findings from this analysis indicate that the FSA is associated with modest reductions in time served. People released under the FSA in 2022 served, on average, 7.3% (or 5 months) less of their imposed prison term than they would have expected to serve prior to the Act’s implementation.
These results should be interpreted with caution. They rely on the cohort of individuals released under the FSA in 2022, and this cohort may not be representative of those released under the FSA in future years, for several reasons. For example, the evidence-based recidivism reduction programming that was mandated by the FSA was just becoming widely available in 2022; since completion of those programs results in sentence reductions, more people are likely to earn time off of their maximum imposed prison terms in the years to come.
Publicly available aggregate data do not permit exploration of whether reducing time served has resulted in a smaller federal prison population. Individual-level data are required for that assessment.
Additionally, this analysis groups all of the FSA release provisions together. Detailed individual-level data are needed to assess whether some provisions may contribute more to reducing time served than others.