New Urban Institute resources on FIRST STEP Act prison particulars

I learned today via email about two notable new resources from the folks at the Urban Institute engaging with some of the intricacies of the prison reform elements of the FIRST STEP Act. 

First, this posting by Emily Tiry and Julie Samuels, titled "Three Ways to Increase the Impact of the First Step Act’s Earned Time Credits," suggests how this piece of the Act could be improved. Here is a snippet:

The 2018 First Step Act—the first major federal criminal justice reform legislation in nearly a decade—established earned time credits (ETCs) to provide early release opportunities for people incarcerated in the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

But to date, implementation of the ETC program has fallen short of expectations. No one has been released early via ETCs, it remains unclear how many — or if any — have actually received any ETCs, and BOP’s proposed rules for accruing and applying credits are restrictive and incomplete.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has interfered with ETC implementation plans by severely disrupting available programming, without changes now, the outlook for ETCs having a meaningful impact on opportunities for early release is bleak....  Although the progress so far has been disappointing, we suggest three ways to maximize the ETC system’s impact. The first would require congressional action; BOP could make the other two changes on its own. 

Second, this new resource, titled "The First Step Act’s Risk Assessment Tool: Who is eligible for early release from federal prison?," walks through the risk assessment instrument now applied to all federal prisoners. Here is how the resource is set up (links from original):

The First Step Act offers people incarcerated in federal prison the opportunity to earn credits toward early release.  To help determine who is eligible (after excluding people with certain prior offenses), the US Department of Justice created the Prisoner Assessment Tool Targeting Estimated Risk and Needs (PATTERN), a risk assessment tool that predicts the likelihood that a person who is incarcerated will reoffend.  This interactive version of PATTERN shows how each risk factor raises or lowers a person’s risk score and can estimate whether they qualify for early release.