When the U.S. Department of Justice published a rule finally spelling out how the federal Bureau of Prisons would implement the First Step Act of 2018, the headlines trumpeted that thousands of people in federal prisons were now eligible for release. The news spread quickly among theI know, because I live behind bars in one of the U.S.’s 122 federal prisons.
However, the devil, as they say, is in the details. And the details, along with the BOP’s reluctant, fitful and arbitrary implementation, have turned the FSA into, at best, a measure of relief for a select few. At its worst, the First Step Act is a mechanism for further reinforcing the discriminatory nature of the U.S. criminal legal system.
Thus, for example, anyone convicted — often decades previously — of virtually any type of act classified as violent, or who is charged with being an “organizer, leader, manager or supervisor of others” when distributing three of the most common street drugs in use today is ineligible. They aren’t even given a chance to demonstrate that they ready to return to their children or parents.
At its worst, the First Step Act is a mechanism for further reinforcing the discriminatory nature of the U.S. criminal legal system.