More than 700 AICs refused to eat in the chow hall in protest when their case managers either gave them incorrect dates for their release to a halfway house or refused to give them a date at all.
Under the First Step Act, many minimum-security prisoners who are calculated to have a low risk of recidivism can earn up to 365 days off their sentence and then an unlimited number of days toward home confinement or halfway house. The BOP is supposed to calculate both a Projected Release Date (the FSA credits awarded to date) and a Conditional Release Date (which projects all of the FSA credits that will be earned in the future). The problem is that case managers, who control the lives of prisoners, are not recognizing the Conditional Release Date and prisoners are staying in prison longer than necessary.
“This is all about the BOP not giving us answers to things we know about from reading the First Step Act law. I should be home now and nobody is listening.”
The “strike” finally broke when prison officials promised to correct the problem “soon.” However, since then, 51 people who participated have been shipped out and supposedly there will be more.