5 ms·

> You get no gain time for time spent in jail for your prison sentence, so its often called dead time or day-for-day or something. Excuse me?! So if I wait fo

by 77pt77 9y ago

> You get no gain time for time spent in jail for your prison sentence, so its often called dead time or day-for-day or something. Excuse me?! So if I wait for 1 year in jail waiting to go to court and later I'm sentenced to 1 year in prison, I get to serve another year?!

pixl97 9y ago
No, that poster doesn't know what they are talking about. That said, sentencing is very discretionary so a judge will commonly balance out your total sentence with how much time you've already spent in jail.
- ferentchak 9y ago
  Man can we be a little nicer here. He said "no gain time for time spent in jail" I am not familiar with the term "gain time" but as he uses it above seems to me additional time taken off of your sentence for playing nice. Working dancing to entertain the warden etc. I took that to mean that while you are in jail you burn down one to one days which is not as fast as the bonus or "gain time" you would get in actual prison. He may or may not be correct and my guess is it depends on where you at since state and local laws will be applied but... As for knowing what he is talking about my guess is many prisoners are experts in the system of trying to reduce their stays in prison.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  You're being extremely rude. It's hard to make absolutely definitive statements on an incredibly complex and often perverse system like custodial sentencing without resorting to the opaque technical language of legal journals. That is rarely appropriate for a casual discussion forum like HN. As the other poster actually has first-hand experience of being incarcerated, your dismissive tone in response to some loose phrasing comes off as both nasty and ridiculous.
- fnordfnordfnord 9y ago
  The poster is talking about post-sentencing "discounts" on prison time served. It's called Good Conduct Time or "good time" for short, in Texas. The way it works is that prison administrators offer inmates early release based upon their behavior. It's a very important and useful prison management tool, one of the only carrots that prison administrators have to offer inmates. Source, was a CO in Texas, also: http://law.justia.com/codes/texas/2005/gv/004.00.000498.00.html http://law.justia.com/codes/texas/2005/gv/004.00.000498.00.h... If you follow the link, you'll see that participating in work or educational programs can improve one's good time earning class, allowing an inmate to earn an earlier release date. In contrast to the other poster, Texas requires good time for time served in county jails. Also notable, educational opportunities have been severely curtailed in TDCJ over the last decade.
cubano 9y ago
No...you get sent home. Let me give a concrete example here, direct from experience. Florida DOC mandates you must do 85% of your prison (not jail...all jails have different gain time schemes just to make it really confusing) sentence, so that is roughly 5 days a month. Lets say you score out to 22 months like I was many years ago...thats a total of 110 potential gain-time days off my sentence...great I think almost 4 months! BUT...let's say I did 13 months in jail waiting for sentencing so I only have to do 9 more in prison. In most prison systems, I would NOT be able to recover all my potential gain-time because the 13 months county-time did not count for my prison gain time, and perhaps I would only get 9*5 or 45 days gain-time against my sentence. Get it?
- _acme 9y ago
  No, that doesn't make any sense at all. What is 'gain time'? What does 'score out to' mean?
  - hfsktr 9y ago
    I am guessing a bit but I am understanding 'gain time' to be accrued time. I think 'score out to' was 'sentenced to'. If I read it right they are saying (mostly) the time spent in jail does not accrue days off a sentence like the time spent in the prison would.
  - cubano 9y ago
    The State of Florida in 1998, in order to fight disparity in sentencing, created a "scoring system"[0] where every crime in Florida is given a number that corresponds to the number of months in prison that crime could carry. The scoring system is byzantine as all hell and I challenge anyone to figure it out.[1] "Scoring out" is simply a term used by Florida convicts to explain how much time they got among themselves I guess. Maybe it was inappropriate to use it here. Gain-time is a sentence reduction scheme where people get time off their total sentence for staying out of trouble. [0] http://macklawpa.com/criminal-defense/felony-score-sheet/ http://macklawpa.com/criminal-defense/felony-score-sheet/ [1] http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/sen_cpcm/cpc_manual.pdf http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/sen_cpcm/cpc_manual.pdf [edits]

by 77pt77 9y ago

pixl97 9y ago

No, that poster doesn't know what they are talking about. That said, sentencing is very discretionary so a judge will commonly balance out your total sentence with how much time you've already spent in jail.

ferentchak 9y ago
Man can we be a little nicer here. He said "no gain time for time spent in jail" I am not familiar with the term "gain time" but as he uses it above seems to me additional time taken off of your sentence for playing nice. Working dancing to entertain the warden etc. I took that to mean that while you are in jail you burn down one to one days which is not as fast as the bonus or "gain time" you would get in actual prison. He may or may not be correct and my guess is it depends on where you at since state and local laws will be applied but... As for knowing what he is talking about my guess is many prisoners are experts in the system of trying to reduce their stays in prison.
anigbrowl 9y ago
You're being extremely rude. It's hard to make absolutely definitive statements on an incredibly complex and often perverse system like custodial sentencing without resorting to the opaque technical language of legal journals. That is rarely appropriate for a casual discussion forum like HN. As the other poster actually has first-hand experience of being incarcerated, your dismissive tone in response to some loose phrasing comes off as both nasty and ridiculous.
fnordfnordfnord 9y ago
The poster is talking about post-sentencing "discounts" on prison time served. It's called Good Conduct Time or "good time" for short, in Texas. The way it works is that prison administrators offer inmates early release based upon their behavior. It's a very important and useful prison management tool, one of the only carrots that prison administrators have to offer inmates. Source, was a CO in Texas, also: http://law.justia.com/codes/texas/2005/gv/004.00.000498.00.html http://law.justia.com/codes/texas/2005/gv/004.00.000498.00.h... If you follow the link, you'll see that participating in work or educational programs can improve one's good time earning class, allowing an inmate to earn an earlier release date. In contrast to the other poster, Texas requires good time for time served in county jails. Also notable, educational opportunities have been severely curtailed in TDCJ over the last decade.

cubano 9y ago

No...you get sent home. Let me give a concrete example here, direct from experience. Florida DOC mandates you must do 85% of your prison (not jail...all jails have different gain time schemes just to make it really confusing) sentence, so that is roughly 5 days a month. Lets say you score out to 22 months like I was many years ago...thats a total of 110 potential gain-time days off my sentence...great I think almost 4 months! BUT...let's say I did 13 months in jail waiting for sentencing so I only have to do 9 more in prison. In most prison systems, I would NOT be able to recover all my potential gain-time because the 13 months county-time did not count for my prison gain time, and perhaps I would only get 9*5 or 45 days gain-time against my sentence. Get it?

_acme 9y ago
No, that doesn't make any sense at all. What is 'gain time'? What does 'score out to' mean?
- hfsktr 9y ago
  I am guessing a bit but I am understanding 'gain time' to be accrued time. I think 'score out to' was 'sentenced to'. If I read it right they are saying (mostly) the time spent in jail does not accrue days off a sentence like the time spent in the prison would.
- cubano 9y ago
  The State of Florida in 1998, in order to fight disparity in sentencing, created a "scoring system"[0] where every crime in Florida is given a number that corresponds to the number of months in prison that crime could carry. The scoring system is byzantine as all hell and I challenge anyone to figure it out.[1] "Scoring out" is simply a term used by Florida convicts to explain how much time they got among themselves I guess. Maybe it was inappropriate to use it here. Gain-time is a sentence reduction scheme where people get time off their total sentence for staying out of trouble. [0] http://macklawpa.com/criminal-defense/felony-score-sheet/ http://macklawpa.com/criminal-defense/felony-score-sheet/ [1] http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/sen_cpcm/cpc_manual.pdf http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/sen_cpcm/cpc_manual.pdf [edits]