D.C. District Court Dismisses Class Action Against BOP 
Over Earned Sentence Credits

On June 9, 2025, the federal court for the District of Columbia dismissed a class action lawsuit that challenged the way the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) treated sentence credits earned by prisoners toward early release under the First Step Act (FSA), P.L. 115-391. Plaintiff prisoners claimed that the credits are mandatory, but BOP prevailed in its view that they are “optional.” 

Signed into law in 2018 during the first Trump administration, the FSA was designed as a sweeping, bipartisan bill to “promote rehabilitation, lower recidivism, and reduce excessive sentences in the federal prison system,” according to The Sentencing Project. Among other provisions, the law created a system of earned time credits that allowed prisoners to cut time off of their sentences by participating in certain programs. As PLN reported, the FSA also gave the BOP a little over two years to implement this system as well as allow some low- and medium-risk offenders to be placed in halfway houses or other forms of pre-release custody. [See: PLN, May 2025, p. 52.] The BOP, however, failed to adhere to this timeline—and, instead of viewing the credits as compulsory, interpreted them as optional. 

In response, in partnership with Jenner …