Bills · 2015-2016 Regular Session
Relating to: allowing certain prisoners to earn time toward early release from confinement in prison. (FE)
Corrections, department of Prison Privacy Sentences and penalties
- Introduced, stopped here
- Passes Assembly, not reached
- Passes Senate, not reached
- Governor signs, not reached
- Law, not reached
Unfamiliar terms? Glossary
What this bill does
Plain-language analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau
This bill allows certain prison inmates to earn time off of the confinement
portion of their sentences.
Under current law, a person who is imprisoned for a felony he or she committed
on or after December 31, 1999, is sentenced to a bifurcated sentence, with the first
portion of the sentence served in confinement in prison and the second portion served
under extended supervision in the community.
A person who is serving a bifurcated sentence, with few exceptions, must serve
the entire confinement portion of his or her sentence before being released to
extended supervision. A person's confinement portion may be extended if he or she
violates a prison regulation. If a person's confinement portion is extended for such
a violation, current law requires his or her extended supervision portion to be
reduced so that the total length of the person's sentence remains unchanged.
Current law allows a person who is sentenced to a bifurcated sentence for a
Class C to Class I felony to petition the sentencing court to adjust his or her sentence
and release the person from prison to extended supervision if he or she has served
85 percent for a Class C to Class E felony, or 75 percent for a Class F to Class I felony,
of the confinement portion of the sentence. If a person's confinement portion is
reduced by the sentencing court, current law requires his or her extended
supervision portion to be extended so that the total length of the person's sentence
remains unchanged.
Under this bill, a person who commits a misdemeanor and is sentenced to
imprisonment or who commits a Class C to Class I felony may accumulate "earned
time" in the amount of one day for every five days he or she is incarcerated without
violating a prison rule or regulation. The bill requires the Department of Corrections
to release the person to extended supervision when he or she serves his or her entire
incarceration period, minus earned time accumulated.
Under the bill, if a person's incarceration period is reduced by earned time, his
or her period of extended supervision is increased so that the length of the sentence
does not change. The bill eliminates the right of a person to petition the sentencing
court to adjust his or her sentence.