When Congress passed the First Step Act in 2018, it did something rare in modern criminal justice politics. It embraced a simple, evidence driven idea: people preparing to return home are better served in the community than behind razor wire.
The law expanded earned time credits and emphasized prerelease custody, including residential reentry centers, commonly known as halfway houses, and home confinement. Lawmakers understood what correctional professionals have long known. The last months of a sentence should focus on reconnecting people to jobs, housing, and families, not warehousing them in prison.
Seven years later, a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) paints a troubling picture. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is not consistently moving eligible individuals into halfway houses on time. In many cases, the BOP does not even know how many people are eligible for transfer according to the GAO report.
The GAO report concludes that the BOP does not know how many individuals currently in prison could have already transferred to a residential reentry center or home confinement because eligibility dates are not readily available in a centralized system.
In other words, the agency charged with implementing the First Step Act cannot easily identify who should be leaving prison for community placement.
GAO found that some individuals remained in federal prisons despite being eligible for relocation to home confinement or a halfway house. Even more striking, GAO previously determined that the BOP did not apply all earned First Step Act time credits toward placement in residential reentry centers or home confinement for 21,190 of 29,934 individuals reviewed. This is a problem I have seen nationwide as many halfway houses do not have the information they need to move inmates from living in halfway houses to home confinement.
The reasons included insufficient halfway house capacity and other administrative factors. But the central point is unavoidable. Thousands of people earned time credits under the First Step Act and still did not receive the full benefit of earlier transfer to the community.
The First Step Act does more than create earned time credits. It also directs the Bureau to ensure there is sufficient prerelease custody capacity to accommodate eligible individuals. It should also be noted that the Second Chance Act, signed by George W. Bush in 2007, also called for increased use of halfway houses and home confinement. Many inmates are allowed to spend up to a year in the community under the Second Chance Act but few get that amount of time. Instead, they stay in expensive, crumbing institutions that have too few staff and limited programming.
Yet GAO found that limited capacity in contracted residential reentry centers and home confinement spaces was one reason individuals did not transfer on time.
As of September 30, 2024, the Bureau was using 91 percent of its contracted halfway house beds and 121 percent of its contracted home confinement spaces. In fact, 38 percent of residential reentry centers were at or above 95 percent capacity, and 62 percent were at or above 95 percent capacity for home confinement.
Even more concerning, GAO concluded that the BOP has not comprehensively assessed its residential reentry center capacity and related budgetary needs. Without a full assessment, the BOP cannot determine how much space is needed, where it is needed, and how much funding is required to meet statutory mandates.
In short, Congress expanded eligibility for community placement, but the BOP did not expand capacity in a coordinated, data driven way.
Capacity is not only a matter of beds. It is also a matter of provider stability and willingness to contract with the federal government.
GAO found that from fiscal year 2022 through March 2025, the BOP made roughly 65,000 late payments to contractors, including residential reentry centers, resulting in $12.5 million in interest penalties.
Even more alarming, GAO found that the Bureau paid residential reentry centers late about 70 percent of the time in fiscal years 2023 through 2024.
Halfway house operators told GAO that they faced hardships because of these late payments, including taking private loans to pay staff. Some providers reported reluctance to bid on new BOP contracts due to payment delays.
If the BOP wants more halfway house capacity, it cannot treat providers as afterthoughts. A stable reentry network requires predictable funding and timely payments.
The policy logic behind the First Step Act is clear. Residential reentry centers are designed to help individuals find employment, secure housing, obtain treatment, and rebuild community ties while still under Bureau supervision.
The Bureau itself has reported that such services can help reduce recidivism.
GAO also noted that living in a residential reentry center or on home confinement is generally less expensive than incarceration in a federal prison. Delays in transfer therefore not only frustrate the rehabilitative goals of the First Step Act but may also increase costs to taxpayers.
The First Step Act envisioned a system where earned time credits translated into meaningful time in the community. That vision depends on both administrative competence and sufficient capacity.
While GAO concludes that the Bureau does not have enough halfway house capacity to meet current demand, others have argued that the issue is not simply the number of beds. I wrote in January 2024, over two years ago, that halfway house capacity could be helped by using successful programs like Federal Location Monitoring, a joint program with U.S. Probation. However, this program is underutilized and has yet to be expanded under the new BOP Director William Marshall III>
In an earlier piece I co-authored with former Acting Bureau of Prisons Director Hugh Hurwitz, we argued that the BOP has additional tools within its existing contracts and authorities that could expand effective capacity without building new facilities.
Residential reentry centers do more than house people overnight. They also supervise individuals on home confinement. Properly structured, expanded home confinement can ease bed pressures while preserving accountability.
In addition, contracts often allow for flexibility in managing capacity across geographic areas. Strategic use of home confinement, better forecasting of earned time credit releases, and more proactive coordination with providers could improve flow through the system.
GAO itself noted that the Bureau could transfer individuals to locations with available space, though officials expressed concern about undermining community ties. That tension is real. Reentry works best when it is local. But it also underscores the need for earlier planning and more granular capacity management.
Perhaps the most fundamental issue GAO identified is data.
The Bureau does not maintain readily available eligibility dates in a way that allows it to monitor whether individuals are transferring on time. Without centralized, trackable data, leadership cannot know how many people are past due for transfer or where bottlenecks exist.
The First Step Act is built on earned time credits, risk assessments, and individualized release planning. That architecture demands robust information systems. If eligibility data lives in individual case files rather than in a system that supports oversight and forecasting, delays are not surprising.
Congress directed the Bureau to ensure sufficient capacity. GAO found that the Bureau cannot even fully measure demand.
The BOP understands that it has a problem and after years of not addressing it now realize that the solution is going to take time. I reached out to the BOP and Scott Taylor of BOP’s Office of Public Affairs provided the following statement:
"The Bureau of Prisons (Bureau) recognizes the importance of expanding prerelease capacity and ensuring individuals transition to the community as efficiently and appropriately as possible. To that end, the Bureau has actively posted Requests for Information on SAM.gov in more than 20 locations nationwide to expand Residential Reentry Center (RRC) and home confinement services. These efforts reflect a deliberate and ongoing strategy to increase community-based capacity and support successful reentry.
With respect to home confinement, the Bureau is transferring individuals as quickly as possible once they reach their Home Confinement Eligibility Date and meet all statutory and public safety criteria. We are committed to ensuring individuals are not held longer than necessary when they are appropriate for home confinement placement.
We have identified isolated instances where some RRC providers were relying on a Projected Release Dates rather than the Conditional FSA date, which could affect placement timing. This appears to be a training and technical implementation issue rather than a policy issue.
Resource constraints limited our ability to conduct in-person, on-site training with providers. However, once funding has been allocated we will be prioritizing enhanced training and technical assistance for RRCs to ensure consistent and accurate dates are utilized for home confinement placement.
Additionally, the Bureau recently uploaded the federal time credit worksheets to provide RRC providers direct access to the same calculation tools used internally. Previously, providers did not have this visibility. We anticipate this increased transparency and alignment of tools will significantly improve accuracy and timeliness in home confinement transitions.
The Bureau remains committed to expanding reentry capacity, strengthening provider training, and ensuring the First Step Act is implemented consistently and fairly across all facilities and community placements."
Seven years after the First Step Act, the law’s promise remains only partially realized. The path forward is not about ideology. It is about management, data, and the disciplined use of the tools Congress has already provided. BOP Deputy Director Josh Smith recently echoed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s call for full implementation of the First Step Act and halfway house capacity is a key component to that implementation.
If community placement reduces recidivism, lowers costs, and strengthens reentry outcomes, then making it work is not optional. It is the job.
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