BOP 2026: Crumbling, Weaponized, but (Finally) Wired?
Prison isn’t meant to be easy and being inside is punishment. If every incarcerated human has a fair designation process, safe infrastructure, and meaningful programming, then safety and rehabilitation happens. But in two stunning developments, two things are now unequivocally clear: the facilities are crumbling, and the designation process can now be weaponized by the…
New Compassionate Release Cases: Is the Door to Freedom Shrinking?
With the First Step Act of 2018 came the great hope of expanded grounds and use of “Compassionate Release.” Judges were offered the promise of wider discretion to give deserving clients a second look at sentencing. But, the Supreme Court just made compassionate release a whole lot harder to get, because in two back-to-back decisions…
Anchor’s Aweigh: New Policies and New Proposed Guidelines Find Us Unmoored in 2025
I call this episode “Anchor’s Aweigh” for two reasons. First, there is a potential seismic shift in federal sentencing coming, which would go far to eliminate what we call the dreaded “anchoring effect” of the draconian and deeply dysfunctional sentencing guidelines. If this passes, it will likely be the biggest change in guideline sentencing since Booker was…