President Trump signed the First Step Act into law in 2018. Since this law passed, there has been a lot of confusion around implementation and how it will actually help people in federal prison.

To help people better understand the law and to try to remove some of the confusion, I am pleased to share this new video with my friend and colleague, Shon Hopwood. Shon is a Professor of law at Georgetown Law School. He is also a former bank robber and federal prisoner.

In our video, Shon and I discuss the law. Some of the benefits, include:

More access to telephone time
More access to email systems
Higher spending limits in the commissary
Opportunities to transfer to prisons that are closer to home
Opportunities to transfer into preferred housing units
Opportunities to receive maximum placement in community confinement centers and home confinement.
Opportunities to learn new skills that will translate into success upon release.

Additionally, as Shon and I discuss, a huge plus of the First Step Act is that it offers opportunities for people in prison to earn “Time Credit” in exchange for participating in positive programs.

Unfortunately, "time credit" has been slow to roll out. People in prison, including our clients at White Collar Advice, are frustrated.

By participating in positive programming, successful prisoners are supposed to earn between 10 and 15 days of Time Credit every 30 days. In contrast to “Good Time” however, Time Credit does not result in time coming off of the sentence. Rather, Time Credit allows people to work toward higher levels of liberty. Rather than serving their time in federal prison, they may serve their sentence while on home confinement.

Thankfully, The First Step Act time credit works in addition to Good Time and any other incentives, like the Second Chance Act and the Residential Drug Abuse Treatment Program (RDAP).

In this video, Shon and I also discuss compassionate release, including how his firm has helped people (like Adam Clausen whose sentenced was shortened by 189 years) get out of prison early.

In this video, Shon references a law review article he wrote. Here is the link: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c...

Shon and I hope you find value in this video. If you have questions, please reach out.

Thank you,
Justin

P.S. In this video, we discuss Adam Clausen, who Shon helped get out of prison. Adam and I did a video you can watch here:    • Adam Clausen: 20 Years, 5 Months & 17...  

P.S.S. To learn more about Shon's remarkable journey from bank robber to lawyer, read his book, Law Man! https://www.amazon.com/LawManRobbin...

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