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3,100 inmates leaving prisons

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 3,100 federal inmates were being released Friday by the Bureau of Prisons as part of a criminal justice overhaul signed into law last year.

The First Step Act gives judges more discretion in sentencing, eases mandatory minimum sentences and encourages inmates to participate in programs aimed at reducing recidivism. The Trump administration has promoted the overhaul as a rare bipartisan effort to address concerns that too many Americans were imprisoned for nonviolent crimes as a result of the drug war.

The inmates were walking out of federal prisons and halfway houses across the country. The releases are part of an increase for “good conduct time” under the law. More than 1,600 other inmates have qualified for reduced sentences under a separate provision of the law that allows some prisoners locked up for crack cocaine charges to ask for sentencing reduction.

Nearly 900 were to be turned over to other law enforcement agencies because of detainers filed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local authorities, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

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