The Second Chance Act of 2007 There was a bill signed into law by President Bush known as the "Second Chance Act". Its a spending bill to help offenders make a transition from Federal Prison to the regular honest working world. A lot of fuss has been made about it and what it may do. The general public knows the name, but really knows little of the contents.
To enact the bill and apply it, the BOP has to publish regulations, wait for comments on them and then proceed. So far, they have not published regulations, so since that process may take over 6 months, it may well be a while before we see the Second Chance Act actually doing anything. Incidently, they do have to enact and start following the law as of October 1, 2008. Apparently, the last time there was a change in halfway house law, there were no regulations published, nor did the BOP really change anything in their procedures.
To me, it has two parts that are actually interesting and useful. First, offenders over age 65 who have served the greater of 10 years or 75% of their time and not committed a violent or sex crime can be released early. A preliminary assessment as to the number of eligible inmates is only 83 inmates.
The second part is that the BOP CAN (and the operative word is CAN) allow up to 1 year of halfway house time to inmates.
In reality, it may not be as good as it was sold to be....
There was a Sentencing Commission symposium held in
It is cheaper to house inmates in prisons than it is in halfway houses. The average cost for a halfway house bed is $64 a day; the average cost for a low-security prison bunk is $48 a day. However, inmates would be considered for halfway house placement in excess of six months on an individual.
Concerning early release for the older inmates; it was estimated that this would only apply to approximately 650 BOP inmates; a somewhat later actual number says that this will really only apply to 83 inamtes. This is a very small percentage of the 202,000 federal prisoners. The early release program is to begin on October 1 2008.
So what I can see from this is that it appears that the BOP is not going to make any real changes. Time will tell and we shall see. I'll update this page as the facts change.
There is also a different bill with a similar name:
This is not to be confused with the "Second Chance for Ex-Offenders Act of 2007" (HR 623): "To permit expungement of records of certain nonviolent criminal offenses" is a bill submitted to the United States House of Representatives by Representative Charles Ragnel (D-NY) to amend the federal criminal code to allow an individual to file a petition for expungement of a record of conviction for certain nonviolent criminal offenses. The resolution was introduced on January 22, 2007, H.R. 623 is still pending congressional action.
This would be a very USEFUL BILL since you cannot expunge a Federal Felony from your record and suffer for the rest of your life for it. Everyone who reads this should drop Congressman Rangel an EMail and tell him he is doing the right thing.
