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First Circuit Review 2009

Congress delegates authority to the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to place inmates.  In determining inmate placement, the BOP must consider five individualized factors before selecting a suitable penal facility for each inmate.  In 2005, the BOP created regulations (2005 regulations) that categorically denied placement and transfer to community correction centers (CCCs) until the last 10 percent of a sentence.  In Muniz v. Sabol, the First Circuit Court of Appeals considered whether the 2005 regulations were contrary to the BOP’s congressional mandate by denying the BOP authority to render individualized placement assessments.  The First Circuit held the BOP could make rules of general applicability to guide the individualized application of its statutory discretion and concluded that the 2005 regulations were a reasonable exercise of that discretion. . . .