# First Step Act Bipartisan federal sentencing and corrections statute signed December 21, 2018 — the most significant federal criminal-justice reform in a generation and, politically, the signature domestic legislative achievement of Donald Trump's first term. It passed the Senate 87–12 and the House 358–36. Core provisions: it made the Fair Sentencing Act's crack-cocaine sentencing reductions retroactive; narrowed the § 924(c) "stacking" rule and the drug-offence mandatory-minimum triggers; broadened the safety-valve exception; expanded compassionate release by letting prisoners petition courts directly rather than depending on the Bureau of Prisons to move first; and created an earned-time-credit system under which prisoners assessed as lower-risk can convert program participation into time in home confinement or a residential reentry centre. Its relevance to [[The Pardon and Clemency Pipeline]] is that it built a **statutory, court-supervised route to sentence relief that runs entirely outside the clemency power** — a judge, a record, a hearing, and an appeal, none of which exist on the clemency side. Where the First Step Act reaches a case, relief does not depend on access to the President. Where it does not, clemency is the only door. **Status:** stub — expand with the earned-time-credit implementation record, the compassionate-release caselaw, the Bureau of Prisons risk-assessment tool (PATTERN) and its disparate-impact critique, and the act's 2025–26 funding and implementation status. ## See also - [[The Pardon and Clemency Pipeline]] — the discretionary route this statute routes around - [[Pardon Power]] - [[Department of Justice]]