About & methodology
Built because the paperwork is often behind the law.
OutDate exists for one moment: a family looking at a BOP sentence computation that doesn't match what the statutes say. Earned-time-credit miscalculations are among the most common complaints in federal facilities, and the difference is measured in months of someone's life. OutDate counts every day the law allows — Good Conduct Time, First Step Act credits, Second Chance Act placement, RDAP — and then helps families put the difference in writing.
How the engine is tested
- The calculation engine is pure, versioned code with a golden-fixture test suite: full sentence scenarios whose expected dates were verified by hand against the statutes and BOP's computation conventions. A rules change that moves any fixture fails the build until each moved date is re-verified against the primary source.
- The rules themselves live in versioned configuration, not code — currently v2026-07.2. Every release is documented with citations on the public changelog, and every saved case is automatically recalculated when rules change.
- A daily watcher monitors the Federal Register, BOP policy pages, and federal court decisions. Signals are triaged by a human who reads the primary source before any rule changes — the watcher itself can never edit a rule.
- Anything in our data that hasn't been verified against a primary source carries a visible verification flag — in the product and on this site — until it has been.
What we hold ourselves to
Estimates, never promises
Every date below the Good Conduct Time line depends on eligibility, programming, risk levels, and BOP discretion. OutDate states each assumption next to the answer and shows confidence bands instead of false precision. We never tell anyone "your loved one will be released on X."
Primary sources only
Every rule in the engine and every claim on this site traces to a statute, a regulation, a BOP program statement, or a court decision — linked where it's used. Where something hasn't yet been verified against the primary source, it's flagged, publicly.
Not legal advice
OutDate describes federal law in general terms and does arithmetic on it. It doesn't advise on any individual case, and no attorney–client relationship is created. Anything a family files should be reviewed by an attorney.
Privacy before growth
Case content is never used for analytics or advertising. Marketing pages carry a simple visit counter; the app itself carries nothing. The anonymous calculator stores nothing at all.
Who is behind it
OutDate is independently built and run. It is not affiliated with the Bureau of Prisons or any government agency. Legal-content review by licensed counsel is part of the roadmap; until a reviewing attorney is named on a page, treat that page as carefully-sourced lay explanation — which is also why every page links its primary sources, so you can read the law yourself. Questions, corrections, and citations we got wrong: [email protected].
The product of all this care
One free, honest calculator.
The full date ladder, every assumption stated, nothing stored.
Run the numbers