Opinion ID: 4540053
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Community Confinement

Text: Two statutes govern BOP’s authority to place a prisoner in community confinement, namely 18 U.S.C. §§ 3624(c) and 3621(b). Before 2007, a prisoner’s assignment to community confinement could not exceed the last six months of his sentence. But in the Second Chance Act (“SCA”), enacted in 2007, Congress granted BOP the discretion to place soon-to-be released inmates into community confinement for up to twelve months: “The [staff] shall, to the extent practicable, ensure that a prisoner . . . spends a portion of the final months of that term (not to exceed 12 months), under conditions that will afford that prisoner a reasonable opportunity to adjust to and prepare for . . . reentry. . . into the community.” § 3624(c)(1). Those “conditions . . . include a community correction facility.” Id.3 To effectuate its additional discretion to place an inmate in community confinement for up to twelve months prior to his release, the BOP issued two memoranda. The first, issued in April 2008, addressed prerelease inmates and instructed staff “to review inmates for pre-release placements at an earlier time., e.g., seventeen to nineteen months before their projected release dates, and to consider 3 See also 28 C.F.R. § 570.21(a) (2009) (“Inmates may be designated to community confinement as a condition of pre-release custody and programming during the final months of the inmate’s term of imprisonment, not to exceed twelve months.”). 5 pre-release inmates on an individual basis using the five factors from . . . § 3621(b).” 4 Garza, 596 F.3d at 1198, 1202-03. The second memorandum, issued in November 2008, “addressed inmate requests for [immediate] transfer to [community confinement] when more than twelve months remained from their projected release date (that is, non-pre-release inmates).” Id. at 1203 (emphasis added). “[T[he memorandum instructed staff that they could not automatically deny a non-pre-release inmate’s request for pre-release transfer, but must give each request individualized consideration.” Id. “However, if an inmate were to request transfer prior to the pre-release time frame of twelve months, although staff must individually consider the request [using the five factors in § 3621(b)], they were instructed that there was no need to perform immediately the statutorily prescribed individualized review,” id. (quotations and citation omitted). Rather, staff were instructed to inform the inmate “that the request would be fully reviewed in conjunction with the next scheduled Program Review,” id.