How compassionate release has changed over the years

What the law says now (October 2026). A federal judge can reduce a sentence for “extraordinary and compelling” reasons (reasons that are especially unusual and convincing). You must first ask the warden in writing. You can file in court 30 days after the warden gets the request, or sooner if you finish the Bureau of Prisons’ appeals (18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)). The judge also weighs the sentencing factors in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). See who may seek compassionate release.

The Sentencing Commission’s policy statement. Since November 1, 2023, U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13 applies to motions filed by prisoners as well as by the Bureau of Prisons, and a reduction must be consistent with it (18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A)). Posts from 2020–2023 that say courts were “not bound” by it describe the law before that date. Rutherford (2026) held the policy statement invalid to the extent it lets a non-retroactive change in law count as a reason.
Bureau of Prisons rules. The Bureau’s current policy is Program Statement 5050.51 (September 3, 2026). It has no 18-month life-expectancy rule, it dropped the child-caregiver, spouse-caregiver, and “other elderly” categories, and it lets people in halfway houses or on home confinement apply.
Age. A court may consider a person who is 65 or older, has a serious decline in health because of aging, and has served at least 10 years or 75 percent of the sentence, whichever is less (U.S.S.G. § 1B1.13(b)(2)). A separate rule covers people 70 or older who have served 30 years under 18 U.S.C. § 3559(c) (§ 3582(c)(1)(A)(ii)).

For decades, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) controlled who could ask a court for compassionate release, and it rarely did. The biggest change came with the First Step Act of 2018, which lets people in prison go to court themselves.

Congress allowed early release of people in federal prison for “extraordinary and compelling” reasons in the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. The law tells the BOP to review requests for a sentence reduction and, when certain criteria are met, to ask the sentencing court to reduce the sentence. The United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) sets the “extraordinary and compelling” criteria. This page covers how compassionate release has developed.

Efforts to fix a broken system

In 2013, the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General issued a report. It found that the BOP had consistently failed to bring qualifying compassionate release motions to the courts. After the report, the BOP issued a new policy that seemed to expand its criteria for compassionate release. But it still failed to bring qualifying motions.

In 2016, the U.S. Sentencing Commission released new guidelines for judging compassionate release requests. The updated guidelines created four categories of extraordinary and compelling reasons for a sentence reduction: medical conditions, age, family circumstances, and “other” extraordinary and compelling reasons.

At the time, the USSC guidelines did not bind the BOP. But the Commission took the unusual step of urging the BOP Director to use his power to bring sentence reduction motions more freely when the criteria were met.

In August 2017, twelve U.S. Senators wrote to the BOP Director asking the agency to take a hard look at how it used compassionate release. They noted that the elderly population in federal prison was growing and that incarceration costs for older people are much higher than for others. The Senators pointed out that the BOP’s only job with compassionate release requests is to send them to the sentencing court when the person qualifies. They worried the BOP was not doing that job.

Despite pressure from the Sentencing Commission and Congress, the BOP did nothing. At the time, Program Statement 5050.49, which governed compassionate release procedures in the Bureau, had not been updated since March 2015. (It has since been replaced, most recently by Program Statement 5050.51 on September 3, 2026.) At the time, only about 10 percent of compassionate release requests the BOP reviewed were found right for a motion in the sentencing court. Between 2014 and January 2018, 81 people in prison died while waiting for an answer from the BOP. The compassionate release statistics tell a story the BOP would rather not have told.

A new path: going straight to court

Because the BOP could not handle the simple task of forwarding requests to a court, lawmakers introduced bills to let people in prison, in some cases, ask the court for a sentence reduction themselves. The First Step Act of 2018 now lets people go directly to court when 30 days have passed since the warden received the request, or after they have exhausted administrative remedies (finished the BOP’s internal appeals), whichever is earlier. This was a very promising change.

Many people, including the U.S. Sentencing Commission, believe courts are in the best position to make these decisions, so the change makes sense. The BOP exists because there are people in federal prison. It is not realistic to expect an agency built around holding prisoners to work hard at releasing them.

Getting help

Compassionate release law and policy keep changing. Because the process is complicated and the stakes are high, anyone thinking about a compassionate release request should talk with a lawyer who knows this area well. Criminal Center can guide you through the process.

If you want help with a compassionate release request, book a consultation.