Op-Ed | Do rehabilitation programs in prison help, both legally and personally?

This article is not about celebrity Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. But recent news articles about Combs’ participation in the Bureau of Prisons’ Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP) at FCI Ft. Dix, where he is serving the balance of his 50-month prison sentence, provide a platform to discuss that program. The program is well known among federal practitioners, but Combs’ recent difficulties complying with its rules provide an opportunity to learn more about it.

RDAP is a voluntary program that lasts between nine and 12 months (ordinarily, it requires roughly 38 weeks to complete in five-day workweeks, three-hour-a-day segments). The 500-hour program strives to educate inmates on the dangers of addiction. Most importantly, relapse prevention is stressed with the goal of helping inmates during post-release stay clean and sober to avoid reoffending. Congress appropriates more than $100 million annually for RDAP. You would think, “Wow, that’s a lot of money, it must be a worthwhile program.” Having witnessed the program firsthand, unfortunately, one’s initial conclusion may not be warranted.

To qualify for RDAP, inmates must have a verifiable substance abuse history during a so-called “target period,” which is one year prior to arrest. Eligibility for the program is ordinarily granted when the Presentence Report (a report prepared by the U.S. Probation Department for the sentencing court) reports that the defendant has a history of drug or alcohol abuse within 12 months of arrest or indictment, whichever is earlier. Whether a defendant has such a history or not, frequently, their attorney will advise the client to self-report to the Probation Department that they have been in the throes of addiction during the target period to qualify for RDAP. The criteria requiring a history of drug or alcohol abuse within 12 months of arrest or indictment is seldom verified by the BOP (if reported in the PSR) or even the US Attorney’s Office prosecuting the defendant. The self-report to the probation office preparing the PSR almost always sways RDAP facilitators in favor of admission — provided the inmate passes an eligibility interview.

How does RDAP help your clients? Personally, if they apply themselves to the lessons taught, it aids their commitment to recovery and sobriety. Legally, it results in a six-, nine-, or even 12-month reduction in sentence (depending on the sentence length). Strong incentives indeed! Perhaps you may also be scratching your head, asking why, if you have been in prison for more than a year, should there be such a substantial reward for learning about the dangers of addiction when, theoretically, you haven’t had access to drugs or alcohol while incarcerated? First and foremost, access to drugs and alcohol (among other vices) is commonplace in prison. Two, as noted, maintaining sobriety after prison is RDAP’s goal.

Not everyone qualifies to take an RDAP course. Primarily, serious violent felonies (i.e., murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault) and some sex offenses, both for the current or past convictions, plus factors like having an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer, serious disciplinary issues, or not having enough time left on their sentence, will make you ineligible for RDAP (until recently, those serving prison time for being convicted of possession of child pornography were ineligible, but now they are eligible).

As noted, RDAP ordinarily requires nine months to complete (some programs, depending on prison location, can last 10 months, and a few up to 12 months). Not every federal prison offers RDAP (71 of 122 locations offer the program), and being assigned to a facility that does is desired by most. Why? It’s not the teachings or their results. It is because, as said, if you complete the course, you can get up to a year off your sentence. A no-brainer, everyone wants to come home as soon as possible. Combs requested placement at FCI Fort Dix and was apparently accepted into RDAP soon after his arrival there.

There is a catch to completing the program at the prison: once released, the inmate must attend Community Treatment Services (CTS) for a few months. Inmates who have completed the unit-based program and the CTS receive time off their sentences. If an inmate does not complete the community-based program, they lose the time reduction credited to them, and they may be sent back to prison to complete their sentence; in short, they lose the time off they received for RDAP.

The program is not a segue to continued abstinence, e.g., mandating that the inmate join Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous after release. Indeed, once your sentence is complete, you have no obligation to comply with any of the principles you have been taught. By contrast, those engaged in Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous know the struggle is ongoing for life. That said, depending on an inmate’s substance abuse history, the Probation Department may require ongoing treatment as a condition of supervised release. Most federal probation officers insist that those under their supervision who have participated in and completed RDAP not frequent restaurants or taverns that serve alcohol. Many insist their charges not have alcohol in their homes. Many regularly drug test.

In prison, RDAP inmates reside together in the same housing unit. The program is administered by a coordinator or facilitator (usually a psychologist with substance abuse treatment experience and treatment “specialists” or counselors). Daily meetings include group sessions for the entire class and individualized meetings with staff. Many don’t make it through the course despite wanting the time off. Part of the program requires participants to “snitch” on others by reporting any statements or misconduct they witness. These sessions are referred to as “call-ups” as in, the inmate is required to “call up” another member of his or her cohort for small slights (not making their bed in the morning) or larger infractions (secreting fruit out of the kitchen to ferment wine). That snitching environment does not sit well with some inmates who would rather quit. During participants’ daily meetings, they are also required to disclose the reasons for their criminal acts. As an aside, none of those “secrets” lasts long within the confines of RDAP and is shared with others in the prison populace.

Another disturbing and surprising aspect of RDAP is that participants are often able to access drugs and alcohol. Indeed, it was my experience that inmates who are not part of RDAP will look to participants to acquire drugs or homemade alcohol for sale on the prison compound. Those abuses — and my personal recollection of them — would necessitate a much longer article.

In addition, at any point during the program, an inmate may be expelled for disruptive behavior related to the program or for unsatisfactory progress in treatment.

Having been in prison, I witnessed many abuses of the program. The Drug Abuse Prison Coordinator at a prison decides whether to place inmates in RDAP. Admission manipulation occurs all too frequently, and on occasion, prison officials responsible for eligibility determinations have been disciplined for misconduct in authorizing ineligible inmates to participate.

Setting aside whether Mr. Combs qualified for RDAP based on his crimes of conviction, staying out of trouble while in the program is critical to remaining in it. Within days of Combs’ arrival at Dix, he was in trouble: He made a three-person call on Nov. 3, 2025, in violation of prison rules. Combs lied to prison officials, telling them it was a conversation with his legal team. According to the BOP, he called an unnamed woman, and about halfway through their call, Combs said he needed to speak with someone described as “the digital person” about blogs. The woman asked Combs if she should add that person to the call, and he said, “Yes.” Combs first spoke briefly with the woman about arranging visitors for the weekend and suggested they bring cash — “200 singles.”

After they finished speaking about visitation, the woman added an unknown male to the call — again circumventing prison rules. The Bureau of Prisons prohibits inmates from adding multiple people to a call. It allows inmates to speak to people on prison phones only from previously approved call lists, under longstanding security rules. Multi-person calls are banned in prisons because of concerns that inmates could use them to coordinate criminal activity, such as drug smuggling, gang violence, or witness intimidation.

In fighting the charge, Combs claimed that no one had informed him of the regulations on phone calls, and that he had never received the prison admission and orientation handbook. Of course, he had been in the Metropolitan Detention Center for more than a year, and the rules are the same.

Prison officials recommended that Combs lose 90 days of phone privileges and 90 days of commissary privileges for the infraction. Instead, Combs lost days of “good time” or 54 days were added back to his sentence. As if that were not enough of a reason to prevent Combs from entering RDAP, he was then found in possession of prison-made alcohol. Another violation that should have led to Combs ineligibility for the RDAP program.

In theory, Sean Combs was ineligible for RDAP based on the violence and nature of his convictions and based on his disruptive behavior, the three-way phone call, and possession of alcohol. However, Combs, like many celebrities and well-heeled inmates, was immune to the rules.

So, how can the BOP improve on RDAP and other programming? The first step is to sit down with those who have been through the experience to get input. The new deputy director of the BOP was a formerly incarcerated inmate, but that was long ago, and he went to a prison camp, which is a whole different ballgame than those who are behind barbed wire.

Robert Simels is a consultant on criminal justice matters and hosts a podcast, “Injustice for All.”