365 Days > 366 Days: The (in)Ability to Earn Good Time Credit During the Time of COVID-19

• Published date: 01 December 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00328855231208010
• Author: Sarah W. Craun,James Silver
• Date: 01 December 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

365 Days > 366 Days: The

(in)Ability to Earn Good

Time Credit During the

Time of COVID-19

Sarah W. Craun

1

and James Silver

2

Abstract

Federal offenders sentenced to imprisonment for more than a year may earn

“good time credit”. Offenders sentenced to 365 days are ineligible for this

potential sentence reduction of up to 54 days a year. Using 2020 through

2022 data from the United States Sentencing Commission, we identif‌ied

3,765 federal offenders sentenced to either 365- or 366-days’imprisonment.

Independent variables included offender, legal, and case characteristics.

Integrating the COVID-19 pandemic, we reviewed the percentage of com-

passionate release motions granted at the district level. A hierarchical logistic

regression with random effects illustrated several measures connected to

the ability to earn goodtime credit.

Keywords

good time credit, credit for service, imprisonment, federal sentences

Introduction

A key goal of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (and resulting guidelines)

was to reduce unwarranted sentencing disparities in the federal judicial

1

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Arlington, VA, USA

2

Boston University Metropolitan College, Boston, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Sarah W. Craun, Cybersecurity and Infrasecurity Agency, 1110 N. Glebe Road, Arlington, VA,

20598-0630, USA.

Email: Sarah.Craun@cisa.dhs.gov

Article

The Prison Journal

2023, Vol. 103(6) 749–768

© 2023 SAGE Publications

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00328855231208010

journals.sagepub.com/home/tpj

system. Since the United States Supreme Court 2005 decision in United

States v. Booker made the guidelines essentially advisory, the United States

Sentencing Commission (USSC) has analyzed and reported on variations in

sentencing practices and sentencing outcomes between regions, within the

same courthouse, and, most recently, across districts (United States

Sentencing Commission, 2020a).

In 2012, the USSC released a report entitled Report on the Continuing

Impact of United States v. Booker on Federal Sentencing which examined

data from 1995 to 2011 and concluded that disparities preceded Booker but

increased after it. Specif‌ically, sentencing outcomes continued to depend (at

least in part) on the district in which the offender was sentenced (United

States Sentencing Commission, 2012). In a 2017 update, the Commission

assessed other extralegal factors that may produce sentencing disparities at

the federal level. In reviewing demographic differences, the Commission

found, for example, that higher average sentences for Black males compared

to White males persisted from Booker through 2017 (Schmitt et al., 2017). An

extensive body of research using both federal and state data generally sup-

ports the Commission’sf‌indings about the existence of geographically deter-

mined disparities as well as racial and ethnicity inf‌luences in some contexts

(e.g., where stereotypes and biases already exist) (Franklin & Henry, 2018;

Ulmer, 2012). Notably, the racial disparity has remained stable over time.

Holmes and Feldmeyer (2023) conducted a 22-year temporal analysis and

found the racial disadvantage was relatively stable for Black and Hispanic

offenders with regards to imprisonment and sentence length.

Within this rich literature, though, there remain voids in our knowledge

about extralegal factors in sentencing. In part, this gap exists because most

studies have simplif‌ied the sentencing decision and looked at only two sen-

tencing outcomes –imprisonment (in/out”decisions) and sentence length.

Doing so obscures the reality that sentencing is multifaceted, comprising a

variety of less noticeable intermediate sentencing outcomes which exist

between the poles of probation and prison (Franklin et al., 2017; Franklin &

Henry, 2018). Considering persistent pressures to manage prison overcrowding

and the desire to understand the unique impacts of incarceration on Black

offenders, increased attention to the use of the whole spectrum of sentencing

options is important (Franklin et al., 2017; Petersilia & Cullen, 2015).

One of the few studies to address this def‌iciency is Franklin and

Henry’s (2018) investigation of a little-researched aspect of federal judicial

discretion –the decision to deny federal offenders access to good time

through sentencing. Using USSC data from f‌iscal years 2010 to 2012, the

authors examined the potential inf‌luence of race and ethnicity on the

likelihood of offenders being denied good time access.

750 The Prison Journal 103(6)