Halfway house and home confinement

B.O.P. Program Statement 7310.04
Community Corrections Center (CCC) Utilization and Transfer Procedure (19 pages)

We have been repeatedly asked about the "new" deal where federal inmates serving the last part of their sentences can qualify for six months halfway house and six months home confinement. Yes, you can, the regulation embodied in program statement 7310.04 which reads in part:

18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) provides:
"The Bureau of Prisons shall designate the place of the prisoner's imprisonment. The Bureau may designate any available penal or correctional facilitythe Bureau determines to be appropriate and suitable." A CCC meets the definition of a "penal or correctional facility."

Therefore the Bureau is not restricted by § 3624(c) in designating a CCC for an inmate and may place an inmate in a CCC for more than the "last ten per centum of the term," or more than six months, if appropriate. (emphasis ours)

Section 3624(c), however, does restrict the Bureau in placing inmates on home confinement to the last six months or 10% of the sentence, whichever is less. (emphasis ours)

In other words, yes you can by law be given both six months halfway house and six months home confinement. If you are in a prison like the one I'm in, however, staff treat P.S. 7310.04 like it's the secret to weapons grade plutonium. They have been doing this for a year now, for the usual obscure and probably punitive reasons, all contrary to law and their own program statement. If you wish to find out more about your lawful rights, get the program statement, and in a timely fashion make the proper overtures to your unit team.

If you cannot wrest the program statement from the B.O.P., it can be had from the Internet at www.bop.gov/progstat/7310-04.html ­ have a friend on the outside get a copy sent to you.