Federal Prison News · Time Credits and Release Dates

Why Did They Take His Credits Away After One Write-Up?

Writ Large · October 21, 2026

Written by Prisoner Legal Aid

He called and said he got a shot. One incident report. Now his counselor has told him days are gone, the date you have been counting toward has moved the wrong way, and nobody in that building will sit down and explain which days, how many, or whether they ever come back.

They are not going to explain it. So here it is.

There are two kinds of days, and they have different rules

Good conduct time is the older one. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3624(b)(1), someone serving more than a year "may receive credit toward the service of the prisoner's sentence of up to 54 days for each year of the prisoner's sentence imposed by the court," but only if the Bureau of Prisons finds "that, during that year, the prisoner has displayed exemplary compliance with institutional disciplinary regulations." If it finds he "has not satisfactorily complied," he "shall receive no such credit... or shall receive such lesser credit as the Bureau determines to be appropriate." The statute then shuts the door behind itself: "Credit that has not been earned may not later be granted."

First Step Act time credits are the newer ones, the ones he earns through programming. Those can be taken too, under a different rule with much better news in it.

Ask him which one his paperwork says. The answer changes everything below.

Why one write-up is sometimes enough, and sometimes not

The amount of good conduct time taken is tied to the severity level written on the incident report, and for nearly everyone inside federal prison today the loss is mandatory rather than a choice somebody made. 28 C.F.R. § 541.4(a) applies that mandatory sanction to inmates whose U.S. Code offense date was on or after April 26, 1996. Then § 541.4(b) sets the floor:

• Greatest severity: "at least 41 days, or 75% of available credit if less than 54 days are available for the prorated period, for each act committed."
• High severity: "at least 27 days, or 50% of available credit."
• Moderate severity: "at least 14 days, or 25%," but only "after committing two or more Moderate severity acts during the current year."
• Low severity: "at least 7 days, or 12.5%," and only "after committing three or more Low severity acts."

Read the bottom two again. At the Moderate and Low levels, a single write-up does not trigger the mandatory loss at all. It takes two Moderate acts in the same credit year, or three Low ones. If days were taken over one Moderate or Low incident report, the numbers on that form are worth going over line by line.

So get the severity level and the prohibited-act code off the paperwork. Not what somebody said in a hallway. The paper.

Who is actually allowed to take days

A counselor cannot. A unit team cannot. Even the Unit Discipline Committee cannot: under 28 C.F.R. § 541.7(f), the UDC may impose the listed sanctions "except loss of good conduct time credit, FSA Time Credits, disciplinary segregation, or monetary fines."

Only the Discipline Hearing Officer can reach those days, and only after a hearing. If he never had a DHO hearing and days are gone anyway, that is not a paperwork quibble. That is the whole appeal.

What that hearing had to look like

28 C.F.R. § 541.8 is short, and every line is something you can check against what he tells you happened.

He had to get "written notice of the charge(s) against you at least 24 hours before the DHO's hearing." § 541.8(c). He was "entitled to have a staff representative," and where he could not adequately speak for himself (the regulation names being illiterate or having "difficulty understanding the charges"), "the Warden will appoint one." § 541.8(d)(1). He was "entitled to make a statement and present documentary evidence," and the DHO "will call witnesses who have information directly relevant to the charge(s) and who are reasonably available." § 541.8(f). Afterwards he had to receive a written report documenting "the evidence relied on by the DHO," the decision, the sanction, and "the reason(s) for the sanction(s) imposed." § 541.8(h).

Those are not courtesies the prison invented. The Supreme Court required the core of them in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 563-67 (1974): what had to be extended to prisoners facing this kind of loss was "advance written notice of the claimed violation and a written statement of the factfinders as to the evidence relied upon and the reasons for the disciplinary action taken." The Court was candid about the limits too: "we must balance the inmate's interest in avoiding loss of good time against the needs of the prison, and some amount of flexibility and accommodation is required." No lawyer is appointed for him at a DHO hearing, and only the DHO puts questions to witnesses. If you want it walked through slowly, what actually happens at one of these hearings is its own page.

The appeal that works is almost never "he didn't do it." It is "they skipped a step."

Why "he didn't do it" rarely wins. Hear that from us first

In Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445, 454-57 (1985), the Supreme Court held that "the requirements of due process are satisfied if some evidence supports the decision by the prison disciplinary board to revoke good time credits," and added that "the Federal Constitution does not require evidence that logically precludes any conclusion but the one reached by the disciplinary board."

Some evidence. One officer's written report can be enough. That is why these are hard to overturn, and why a family that spends six weeks gathering statements proving he was elsewhere is often working on the wrong thing. Missing notice, a staff representative never provided, a witness never called, a written report with no reasons in it: those are the arguments.

Families also reach for the time in the hole. In Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 483-86 (1995), the Court held that a protected liberty interest is generally limited to restraint imposing "atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life," and that thirty days of segregation did not qualify. Segregation is usually the weaker complaint. The days are the strong one.

The First Step Act credits, and the rule that gives them back

If what he lost were FSA time credits, there is real news in the statute. 18 U.S.C. § 3632(e)(2) requires that any reduction including loss of time credits "shall require written notice to the prisoner, shall be limited to time credits that a prisoner earned as of the date of the prisoner's rule violation, and shall not include any future time credits that the prisoner may earn."

So the credits he earns from here forward are out of this write-up's reach, and the taking has to be in writing. And § 3632(e)(3) requires "a procedure to restore time credits that a prisoner lost as a result of a rule violation." The regulation spells it out: he "may have part or all of the FSA Time Credits restored to him or her, on a case-by-case basis, after clear conduct (behavior clear of inmate disciplinary infractions under 28 CFR part 541) for two consecutive risk and needs assessments conducted by the Bureau." 28 C.F.R. § 523.43(c). The loss itself is reviewable "through the Bureau's Administrative Remedy Program." § 523.43(b).

Tell him that tonight. These can come back, and clean conduct across two assessments is what brings them. (If the earning side is still fuzzy, how he earns these in the first place comes first, and the time-credits checklist is the short version.)

The appeal, and the part everybody gets wrong

A DHO appeal does not start with the warden. 28 C.F.R. § 542.14(d)(2): "DHO appeals shall be submitted initially to the Regional Director for the region where the inmate is currently located." He uses the BP-10 and skips the BP-9. A BP-9 handed to the institution on a DHO case comes back as the wrong form, and the weeks are gone.

Two more rules get these rejected unread. "For DHO and UDC appeals, each separate incident report number must be appealed on a separate form." § 542.14(c)(2). And the BP-10 is due "within 20 calendar days of the date the Warden signed the response," the later BP-11 to the General Counsel "within 30 calendar days of the date the Regional Director signed the response." 28 C.F.R. § 542.15(a). The clock runs from the signature date on the paper, not the day it reached his hands. So treat the date printed on his DHO report as day one and get the BP-10 in well inside twenty days. If he is already past it, he files anyway and explains the delay in writing; § 542.15(a) allows an extension "when the inmate demonstrates a valid reason for delay."

If this ever has to reach a judge, the chain has to be finished first: "No action shall be brought with respect to prison conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative remedies as are available are exhausted." 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). The BP-10 is the first hinge on that door. Whether a write-up is ever worth taking further is a separate question with a separate answer.

What to do today

• Get the date printed on the DHO report. Write it down, count twenty calendar days forward, write that date down too. Everything else waits behind it.
• Get four facts off the paperwork: incident report number, prohibited-act code, severity level, and whether the days taken were good conduct time or FSA time credits.
• Ask him three questions and write the answers with dates. Did he get the written charge at least 24 hours before the hearing? Did he ask for a staff representative, and did he get one? Did he ask for a witness, and was the witness called?
• Have him request his sentence computation and a copy of the DHO report, in writing, from his counselor.

What to do this week

• Have him get the BP-10 and send it to the Regional Director, not the institution. One incident report per form.
• Keep his copy of everything, including every envelope with a date on it. He has no file cabinet and no calendar. You do.
• If no response ever comes, that is its own problem with its own fix, and it is not a reason to stop filing.

Language he can copy onto the BP-10, in his own handwriting:

I appeal the DHO decision in Incident Report No. ________, dated ________, and the sanction of loss of ________ days. I submit this appeal to the Regional Director as directed by 28 C.F.R. § 542.14(d)(2). The record does not show that I received written notice of the charge at least 24 hours before the hearing as required by 28 C.F.R. § 541.8(c) [and/or] that I was provided the staff representative I requested under § 541.8(d)(1) [and/or] that the written report stated the evidence relied on and the reasons for the sanction as required by § 541.8(h). I request that the finding be expunged, the credits restored, and a written response identifying the evidence relied upon.

He signs it and files it. You can gather the paperwork, type it up and mail him copies, but the appeal goes in under his name.

What to stop worrying about tonight

That the number is final. It is reviewable, and for FSA credits the restoration procedure is written into the statute itself.

That you have to prove he is innocent. Under Hill, that is not what the appeal turns on. Whether they followed their own rules is.

That the hole is the real damage. Under Sandin it is usually the weaker complaint. The days moved his date, and the days are what the appeal is about.

Nobody can tell you how this ends. What you can do is get those four facts off his paperwork and the right form into his hands before the twenty days run out.

Where this came from

18 U.S.C. §§ 3624(b)(1), 3632(e); 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); 28 C.F.R. §§ 523.43, 541.4, 541.7, 541.8, 542.14, 542.15; Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 (1974); Superintendent v. Hill, 472 U.S. 445 (1985); Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995). Each was retrieved and quoted from the source itself.

The First 72 Hours

We put the whole checklist in one place: the written requests you can copy, the paperwork to ask for, what to write down, and the order to do it in. It is free and it comes by email, so you have it on your phone when you are standing in a parking lot outside a facility.

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If you would rather just talk to a person, call the Prisoner Legal Aid Family Help Line at 786-408-5073, or text 727-635-0600. If it is the middle of the night, send the email instead and it will be read in the morning.

Prisoner Legal Aid prepares documents, requests records, explains deadlines, and connects families with independent civil rights attorneys, under the oversight of a licensed attorney. Nobody can tell you how this ends. What can be done is to read his DHO report against the four lines of § 541.8 and get the BP-10 to the Regional Director while the twenty days are still his.