American Experiment testifies to rein in prisoner ‘Earned Incentive Release Credits’
The 2023 Minnesota Legislature passed a public safety measure entitled the Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act (MRRA).
A key component of the MRRA was the “Earned Incentive Release Credit” (EIRC). The EIRC was billed as a way to incentivize good behavior and participation in programming by state prison inmates.
The incentive provided was an opportunity for nearly all state prison inmates (with the exception of those serving life sentences and a few more obscure examples) to serve just 50% of their executed sentence in custody. Minnesota state prison inmates currently must serve at least 66% of their prison sentence in custody before they are eligible for community supervision — that will change after the EIRC becomes functional later this year.
In 2025 House Republicans have offered two bills designed to rein in the effects of EIRC — HF 533 and HF 963. American Experiment’s Public Safety Policy Fellow David Zimmer testified in support of both bills at the House Public Safety Finance and Policy Committee meeting Wednesday.
Relevant to HF 533, which seeks to establish a list of convictions for which participation in EIRC and a reduction in time served would be ineligible, Zimmer testified:
We should all want prison inmates to participate in programing. It’s in our collective best interest that prison inmates come out better than when they went in. But a 50% reduction in imprisonment time is excessive, and it adds to the ever-expanding disrespect and disregard so many criminal offenders have for the soft on crime stance Minnesota has taken.
We continue to have among the lowest incarceration rates and the highest community supervision rates in the country. Reports indicate 87% of those under correctional control are under community supervision and not incarcerated. Reports also indicate our state is doing a poor job at supervision, whereby nearly 60% of prison admissions are the result of supervision failures. Yet the MRRA, when implemented, will further reduce the length of time the DOC has to engage offenders in proper rehabilitation efforts.
This bill adds an appropriate number of violent crimes to the list of exceptions. Many of these crimes such as using a firearm during the commission of a crime or failing to register as a predatory offender are among the crimes with the highest rates of downward departures from our sentencing guidelines. To then provide these offenders with even less time to serve through the earned incentive release credit undermines the value that a consequential criminal justice system provides.
Relevant to HF 963 which seeks to remove the “non-revocable” clause from any early release credit an inmate obtained, Zimmer testified:
In 2024, there were some 6700 inmates (81% of all inmates) with a diagnosed substance abuse disorder. Yet just under 25% of those inmates engaged in substance abuse treatment, and of those who did, 21% failed to successfully complete the treatment.
In 2024, there were 923 inmates with a diagnosed Serious and Persistent Mental Illness. The DOC engaged with these inmates nearly 2100 times in an effort to complete Release and Reintegration planning yet were able to complete just 227 release plans with these prisoners.
In 2024, inmate on staff assaults causing significant harm increased by 80% over 2023 levels. Inmate on inmate assaults causing significant harm increased by 137%. The prison system had its first homicide of an inmate in 4 years. Possession of drugs increased by 44%, and possession of escape materials increased by 190%.
I respectfully suggest that this level of disorder and programmatic failure is not the environment to insert a non-revocable earned incentive release clause. Such a clause would simply play into the disorder at hand.
Our legislature has often prided itself in having the intelligence and collegiality to find solutions to the problems facing Minnesota. In 2023, the DFL majority punted when it came to the EIRC. It was inexcusable to consider the only way to incentivize good behavior and participation in programming was to offer early release after serving just 50% of a sentence. This undermines the deterrent value of incarceration, and limits the finite time the DOC has to work with inmates.
Minnesotans are tired of hearing about criminal offenders hurting law-abiding citizens, only to find out they had been released early from a previous conviction or accepted a plea bargain that kept them on the street altogether.
It’s time our Legislature took action to move the pendulum back towards a more consequential criminal justice system — a system that removes violent criminal offenders from society and ensures the Department of Corrections has the tools and time to apply proper “correctional” efforts.
American Experiment will remain vigilant and advocate for policy that moves us in that direction.
Complete testimony and debate can be found here.