Good Time Credit

History

The development of good time credits can be traced to the early 19th century, when the first good time law in the United States was enacted in Auburn, New York, in 1817. Other countries provided similar opportunities for inmates to reduce sentence length. For example, the marks system developed by Alexander Maconochie in Norfolk Island, Australia, rewarded good conduct during incarceration through a reduction in sentence length. The Irish reward system developed by Sir Walter Crofton provided a graduated structure of early release in which inmates progressed through a series of stages to earn release from incarceration, known as a ticket of leave. Both strategies were precursors in the development of modernday parole. The Canadian remission system was also similar to the concept of good time credits. By 1876, 29 states in the United States had enacted good time laws.

Purpose

Good time was developed to serve three distinct purposes: discipline, population control, and rehabilitation. Thus, good time laws in the United States were designed primarily to facilitate prison management and to resolve problems with overcrowding.

Prison administrators used good time credits as a management tool to control the behavior of prison inmates. Credits provided powerful motivation for good behavior and an effective means of control, since those who refused to follow the rules or who acted out faced the possibility of the loss of good time credits. Misconduct was punished through a loss of accrued credits, which lengthened the term of incarceration.

Good time credits reduced prison crowding by establishing a safety valve through which administrators could regulate the flow of inmates out of the prison system. They also provided a back-door solution to the problem of prison overcrowding by allowing the early release of inmates from incarceration. Additional credits were occasionally provided during period of extreme overcrowding to accelerate the release process. For example, Michigan responded to a period of prison overcrowding in 1981 and 1982 by rolling back minimum sentence lengths by 90 days to increase the number of inmates released on parole. The early release of inmates from incarceration also made space available for incoming offenders.

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