Federal Prison News · Release Dates and Time Credits

He Finished the Gun Charge Years Ago. Why Is He Still Not Earning Time Credits?

Writ Large · October 7, 2026

Written by Prisoner Legal Aid

Two counts, years ago — the drug count and the gun count. The gun count was the shorter one, and by any way you know how to count, he finished it a long time ago. He has been in classes for a year. His team keeps saying he is "FSA ineligible," and nobody in that building will explain what that means or when it ends.

Here is the honest answer. Part of it is hard, and part of it is better than he has been told.

The list is a list of convictions, not a list of guns

Under 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4), a man who is earning gets "10 days of time credits for every 30 days of successful participation in evidence-based recidivism reduction programming or productive activities," plus "an additional 5 days of time credits for every 30 days" at minimum or low risk — the same arithmetic the Bureau writes into 28 C.F.R. § 523.42(c), and the part most families already understand.

Then Congress listed 68 crimes that shut the earning off. Its words matter more than anything else on this page:

"A prisoner is ineligible to receive time credits under this paragraph if the prisoner is serving a sentence for a conviction under any of the following provisions of law."

18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D). A conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) — using or carrying a firearm "during and in relation to any crime of violence or drug trafficking crime," or possessing one "in furtherance of any such crime" — is item (xxii). The Bureau's rule repeats it: "If the inmate is serving a term of imprisonment for an offense specified in 18 U.S.C. 3632(d)(4)(D), the inmate is not eligible to earn FSA Time Credits." 28 C.F.R. § 523.41(d)(2).

So the test is the count he was convicted of. A firearm that appears only in the presentence report — the gun found in the house, the two-level bump his lawyer argued about — is not a conviction under a listed provision. If his judgment shows no count under one of the 68, this bar is not what is holding him and the reason is elsewhere. Read the counts off the judgment, one by one, against the excluded list.

One caution, so nobody is blindsided. A few of the listed drug items do turn on what the sentencing judge found. The heroin item at § 3632(d)(4)(D)(lxv) and the methamphetamine item at (lxvii) each apply only "if the sentencing court finds that the offender was an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor of others in the offense, as determined under the guidelines promulgated by the United States Sentencing Commission." If a role finding like that is in his case, it counts.

Why finishing the gun count did not fix it

When a man is sentenced on more than one count, the Bureau does not run the sentences as separate buckets. Congress told it not to. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3584(c), "Multiple terms of imprisonment ordered to run consecutively or concurrently shall be treated for administrative purposes as a single, aggregate term of imprisonment."

Prisoners have taken your exact argument to the courts of appeals — I served the bad count, let me earn on the rest — and lost. The Second Circuit held in Giovinco v. Pullen, 118 F.4th 527 (2d Cir. 2024), that under the aggregation provision "a prisoner 'is serving a sentence for' any offense that is part of his aggregated term of imprisonment." The Fourth Circuit reached the same place in Bonnie v. Dunbar, No. 24-6665 (4th Cir. Nov. 5, 2025), saying that "the provision categorically disqualifies a prisoner, not a sentence, from receiving FSA time credits."

I am not going to dress that up. On the decisions as they stand, one disqualifying count sits on the whole aggregated term. Judge Wynn dissented in Bonnie — "Can a prisoner 'serve' a 24-month sentence for 144 months? Of course not." — but a dissent is not the rule, and nobody should tell him otherwise, least of all someone charging for the advice.

So if one of his counts really is on the list, the fight is not about waiting that count out. It is about whether the count is on the list at all, and whether the Bureau read the judgment correctly. Those are paper questions, and paper questions can be won.

Earning is one gate. Getting the credits used is a second one.

Credits do not come off the back of the sentence by themselves. Section 3632(d)(4)(C) says earned credits "shall be applied toward time in prerelease custody or supervised release," and the conditions live in 18 U.S.C. § 3624(g) and 28 C.F.R. § 523.44: credits equal to the remainder of the imposed term, risk reassessments showing reduction or a maintained minimum or low risk, and the remainder of the term "computed under applicable law." The move is permissive — the Director "may transfer the prisoner to begin any such term of supervised release at an earlier date, not to exceed 12 months." § 3624(g)(3).

Two more bars sit here and have nothing to do with his offense: the Bureau may not apply credits toward prerelease custody or early transfer to supervised release for a man under a final order of removal, or serving a sentence under laws other than the U.S. Code. 28 C.F.R. § 523.44(a)(2), (a)(3). Either way credits pile up and go nowhere, which from the outside looks exactly like a release date that will not move.

What to do today

Ask him to put in a written request to his case manager — the inmate request form, the cop-out — for printed copies of three things: his sentence computation, his FSA time-credit assessment, and the judgment and commitment order the Bureau is working from. These are records about him. The request is normal and free. Then write down the exact statute and subsection for every count on that judgment, and the term imposed on each.

One thing you cannot do for him: 28 C.F.R. § 542.16(a) says "An inmate may also obtain assistance from outside sources, such as family members or attorneys," then says "no person may submit a Request or Appeal on the inmate's behalf." Gather it, type it, mail him copies, keep the calendar. He signs and files it. Anyone who says they will file it for him is confused or selling you something.

What to do this week, if the paperwork is wrong

The remedy available to him from inside is the Administrative Remedy Program, and it runs on short clocks. The filing checklist walks the sequence; the bones are these:

• Informal first — "an inmate shall first present an issue of concern informally to staff." 28 C.F.R. § 542.13(a). Inside, staff call it the BP-8.
• Then the BP-9 to the warden, due "20 calendar days following the date on which the basis for the Request occurred." 28 C.F.R. § 542.14(a). Calendar days, not business days. Already past it? Section 542.14(b) allows an extension where he "demonstrates a valid reason for delay" — so he files anyway and explains the delay in writing.
• One issue per form. A form carrying unrelated issues "shall be rejected and returned without response." § 542.14(c)(2).
• Then BP-10 to the Regional Director within 20 calendar days of the date the warden signed, and BP-11 to the General Counsel within 30 calendar days of the date the Regional Director signed. "Appeal to the General Counsel is the final administrative appeal." 28 C.F.R. § 542.15(a).
• Silence counts. If the time passes with nothing, "the inmate may consider the absence of a response to be a denial at that level." 28 C.F.R. § 542.18.

Language he can put on the BP-9 in his own handwriting:

The Bureau has designated me ineligible to earn FSA Time Credits under 18 U.S.C. § 3632(d)(4)(D). My judgment shows convictions on counts ____ under __________. I request a written statement identifying which count and which provision of § 3632(d)(4)(D) the designation rests on, and correction of my FSA Time Credit record if no count of conviction appears on that list.

Every prisoner in the reported cases went through that chain first and only then into court. When the administrative side is finished and the answer is still wrong, a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 is the road those cases took — the writ reaches a prisoner who "is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States." § 2241(c)(3). Nobody can promise where it ends.

What to stop worrying about

That he missed a form and ruined it. The Bureau makes this designation again month after month. A new basis, a new clock.

That you have to buy the answer. Every statute and rule here is public and free, his computation sheet is his for the asking, and more is collected on the First Step Act hub.

Where this came from

18 U.S.C. §§ 3584(c), 3624(g), 3632(d)(4); 28 C.F.R. §§ 523.41, 523.42, 523.44, 542.13, 542.14, 542.15, 542.16, 542.18; Giovinco v. Pullen, 118 F.4th 527 (2d Cir. 2024); Bonnie v. Dunbar, No. 24-6665 (4th Cir. Nov. 5, 2025). Each was retrieved and quoted from the statute, regulation or opinion itself.

The First 72 Hours

We put the whole checklist in one place — the records and computations to ask for, the written requests you can copy, 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 sitting in a parking lot outside a facility.

Send me the First 72 Hours guide →

If you would rather just talk to a person, call 786-408-5073 and ask for Charles Christopher. 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 we can do is read his judgment next to the list in § 3632(d)(4)(D) and tell you, on paper, whether the count the Bureau is relying on is actually there.