Chrisley Confessions 2.0 – Rick Stover (BOP's Special Asst. to the Director)

Episode Date: October 8, 2025
Host: Todd Chrisley
Guest: Rick Stover, Senior Deputy Assistant Director (Bureau of Prisons)

Episode Overview

In this candid and informative installment, Todd Chrisley welcomes Rick Stover, the Senior Deputy Assistant Director at the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), for an in-depth discussion about the First Step Act (FSA), the evolution of its implementation, and the ongoing challenges and reforms within federal prison operations. The conversation is refreshingly honest, blending Todd’s personal experience with incarceration and advocacy with Stover’s inside perspective as a BOP leader. The episode offers rare transparency, directly addressing both technical policy issues and the human stories at stake.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction and Roles (00:00–01:15)

• Todd welcomes Rick Stover, noting their past interactions and the importance of their work together around the First Step Act (FSA).
• Stover clarifies his position and outlines his primary responsibility as the BOP lead for FSA implementation.

2. Stover’s Career and Context of FSA (01:04–01:51)

• Stover has 29 years at the BOP, having witnessed the introduction and roll-out of the FSA.
• FSA enacted in 2018 under President Trump; Stover was on the ground as a facility-level manager at first, growing into his current oversight role.

3. Implementation Challenges of the First Step Act (02:31–03:33)

• Todd asks directly whether the FSA was poorly implemented; Stover concedes there were significant “growing pains.”
• Stover points to the complexity of the law (over 180 pages) and its impact on daily BOP operations: “Anything that big, there’s going to be some growing pains.” (02:53)

4. Overview of Good Conduct Time, Second Chance Act, and FSA Credits (03:33–06:16)

• Todd raises issues around program stacking, calculation inconsistencies, and recurring confusion in memos and policy.
• Stover delineates:
  • Good Conduct Time (GCT): “That’s the 54 days off per year... that’s automatically calculated at the front end.” (04:20)
  • Second Chance Act: Allows up to 12 months community placement, with home confinement capped at six months or 10% of sentence, whichever is less.
  • FSA: Inmates earn “up to 15 days for every 30 days served. Do the math... that’s about half of the time.” (05:20)

5. Administrative Confusion & Evolution of Time Credits (06:16–09:48)

• Early rollout confusion, especially with FSA time credits, culminating in concrete policy only as late as 2023.
• Initial resistance to projecting release dates; new approach assumes inmates will continue qualifying behaviorally, so “conditional release dates” can be calculated and shared.
• Stover notes: “Now... there’s been some growing pains. Our case managers maybe didn’t understand it as best we could. Some of that was our fault.” (09:49)

6. Policy Progress: Conditional Release & New Memos (13:02–15:03)

• Major memo (June 17) eliminated bed/resource availability as an excuse for blocking community placement.
• New time credit worksheets now include clear statutory home confinement dates: “There’s no reason for you to go to the halfway house and unnecessarily take up that bed.” (14:14)

Operational Challenges and Reforms

7. Triage Teams and Manual Calculations (17:37–21:13)

• Stover shares persistent complaints about the discrepancy between eligibility worksheets and actual placement.
• Solution: Formation of an “FSA triage team” to manually reassess and expedite eligible inmate transitions to home confinement, freeing halfway house beds for those who truly need them.
• Notable: Over 6,000 manual reviews undertaken, resulting in tangible movement of inmates to appropriate settings.

8. Focus on Imminent Releases and Backlog (21:13–22:45)

• Immediate attention prioritizes those with imminent release dates; those with long sentences are asked to be patient.

Implementation at Ground Level

9. Frontline Staff and Cultural Resistance (25:23–28:25)

• Todd presses Stover on local resistance and the risk that reforms stall if case managers remain defiant or uninformed.
• Example: A visit to Pensacola, where Stover’s direct communication with inmates provided clarity and hope. Todd notes the power of honest, direct information: “It took you going to this facility to restore hope in these 75 men...” (29:54)

10. Training and Accountability (29:54–31:34)

• Stover details new training materials for case managers, including a 60-slide deck and AI-narrated modules, now posted publicly.
• “For someone to come back... and say, well, the case managers just don’t understand this stuff. Well, hold on... You’ve got to read the material. We even went through AI and got it narrated, for goodness sake.” (30:49)
• Growing pressure for accountability: “We're providing it to them—they cannot use [lack of training] as an excuse.” (31:01)

Structural and Cultural Constraints

11. Sending Issues Back to Institutions: Todd's Challenge (37:08–39:54)

• Todd relates skepticism based on personal experience where local responses were often “bullshit” and real problems only got fixed after media pressure.
• Stover contends that current follow-up is more robust, non-boilerplate, and is hopeful that improved training will curb “spinning.”

12. Legal Limits on Home Confinement & Misconceptions (40:09–42:40)

• Todd addresses the widespread misconception that the BOP Director can place inmates in home confinement at will.
• Stover gives a concise legal explainer: Directors are bound by statute and can only grant home confinement within strict parameters: “Completely inaccurate... The director does not have that authority.” (40:56, 41:24)

Outlook and Impact

13. FSA and Changing BOP Landscape (42:47–47:13)

• Stover projects: Barring statutory changes, the BOP population—especially nonviolent offenders—will see drastically more community placement over the next decade: “Our population is going to look very, very different... nonviolent offenders... will serve almost half their time in the community.” (45:17)
• The CARES Act is cited as a model of success for home confinement transitions.

14. Bipartisan Origin and Long-term Benefits (47:14–50:37)

• The bipartisan nature and intentions of FSA are celebrated; Jared Kushner’s personal connection and advocacy are highlighted.
• Financial implications: reduced inmate population, lower costs, focusing BOP resources on where they’re most needed.
• “At our height, 2014, the Bureau of Prisons population was about 220,000. Today... 155,000. That’s a marked decrease. So we are saving the taxpayer dollars.” (50:00)

15. Final Reflections and Mutual Respect (51:00–53:07)

• The episode closes on a personal note, with Stover crediting Todd’s relentless advocacy and genuine commitment to reform as crucial to ongoing progress: “You are high maintenance... but you do these for the right reason, and your heart’s in the right place.” (52:14)
• Todd reciprocates, acknowledging real change is happening: “Those people are going home to their families. So for everyone that goes home... that helps me sleep better at night.” (52:30)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On FSA Complexity:
  “Anything that big, there’s going to be some growing pains. We had our growing pains. We’re moving forward under Director Marshall’s leadership...” (Stover, 02:53)

• On Time Credit Calculations:
  “Now... we've said... we’re going to give you the benefit of the doubt. We’re going to assume that you’re going to do the right thing... and calculate what we call conditional release dates.” (Stover, 09:20)

• On Responsibility:
  “For someone to come back... and say, well, the case managers just don’t understand this stuff. Well, hold on... You’ve got to read the material.” (Stover, 30:49)

• On System Constraints:
  “Completely inaccurate. The director does not have that authority. This has been challenged... the director of the BOP’s statutory authority basically says that when an inmate comes into our custody, we have the authority to be placed in... a penal or correctional institution, which is not home confinement.” (Stover, 40:56)

• On Cultural Change:
  “It took you going to this facility to restore hope in these 75 men... because the feedback I got was... He gave us the real details. He was straight up with it. That’s all anyone wants.” (Todd, 29:54)

Key Timestamps

• 00:00–01:15 – Opening, intros, Rick Stover’s role
• 02:53 – Stover acknowledges mistakes in FSA implementation
• 04:14–06:16 – Discussion of GCT, Second Chance Act, FSA credits
• 07:05–09:48 – How FSA time credits were applied and how policy changed
• 13:02–15:03 – June 17 memo, new home confinement policy
• 17:37–21:13 – FSA triage team and manual recalculations
• 25:27–30:49 – Todd challenges ground-level implementation; staff resistance
• 31:01–31:34 – Training and accountability for case managers
• 37:08–39:54 – Sending issues back to local authorities; accountability
• 40:09–42:40 – Legal limits on home confinement, misconceptions
• 45:17–47:13 – Projections for the future BOP population and home confinement
• 51:00–53:07 – Personal anecdotes; mutual respect; closing thoughts

Tone and Style

The conversation is frank, unvarnished, and spiced with the characteristic humor and honesty that has defined Chrisley Confessions. There’s a clear sense of mutual respect: Todd brings intensity and the urgency of lived experience, while Stover answers thoroughly, never dodges, and occasionally trades good-natured barbs. Both share a desire for a fairer, more transparent, and more functional federal prison system—grounded in policy but always concerned for the individuals affected.

Summary by Podcast Summarizer AI
(covering episode main themes, content-rich highlights, timeline, and tone for listeners who want the story without the ads or digressions)