Despite First Step Act, some federal inmates remain in prison extra months

The Trump-era First Step Act has allowed thousands of nonviolent federal offenders to leave prison sooner, but advocates say they have reviewed numerous instances of inmates remaining behind bars longer than they should be — raising questions about ongoing implementation failures.

Sreedhar Potarazu, a former federal inmate who sued his Maryland prison in 2022 over the calculation of his so-called earned time credits under the First Step Act, has turned his inside knowledge of the law toward helping inmates determine the exact dates when they should be released from prison, typically into a halfway house or home confinement, until their sentences are fulfilled.

In nine cases reviewed by Potarazu and shared with NBC News, inmates were incarcerated between two and eight months past their “last date inside,” a term that he says denotes when an inmate can technically be transferred out of prison to prerelease custody because they’ve accrued enough time credits through participation in rehabilitation and work programs and drug and alcohol abuse counseling.

“Even one life kept in longer is an injustice,” Potarazu said, adding: “The taxpayer should care because they’re footing the bill. You may not have anyone in there, but you’re still paying for it.”

Walter Pavlo, president of the consulting firm Prisonology LLC, whose experts include former federal Bureau of Prisons case managers, wardens and sentence computation professionals, said he regularly sees cases of inmates who have remained in prison past the dates they should have been moved, with an underlying issue appearing to be a lack of capacity at halfway houses.

Across the country, the BOP says it contracts with about 160 halfway house locations offering more than 10,000