New Report Shows No Black Prisoners Considered for Early Release Under Minnesota Law

Criminal justice advocates held a press conference to highlight the disparities in anew legislative report from the Minnesota Department of Corrections showing that no Black or Hispanic incarcerated people were considered for early release in 2025 under the state’s new rehabilitation law.

A new report from the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) shows that not a single Black or Hispanic incarcerated person was even considered for early release in 2025 under Minnesota’s new rehabilitation law, despite those groups making up a large share of Minnesota’s prison population.

The Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act (MRRA) was passed in 2023 and is supposed to help people in prison work towards early release by completing individualized rehabilitation plans that include access to education, treatment and behavioral programming.

Advocates say the numbers reveal a troubling gap between the law’s promises and how it is being implemented.

Screenshot of the Department of Corrections 2026 Legislative Report on the Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act (MRRA)

“So far, this law has been implemented in a way that is both excessively slow and deeply racist in outcome, and these are interconnected,” said David Boehnke of the Minnesota Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee at a Tuesday press conference.

Derrick Dukes, who spent 32 years incarcerated in Minnesota’s prison system, said during his time, he saw how access to programming and internal decisions about classification could shape a person’s future.

“When a state makes a pathway for rehabilitation, it’s supposed to create hope. But the hope only works if it’s applied fairly,” he said. “The promise of rehabilitation should not depend on where a person came from or what race they are, it should depend on the work they put in to change their lives.”

The program relies on individualized assessments and case plans developed with corrections staff to guide a person’s rehabilitation and determine eligibility for earned release credits.

But the law is being rolled out gradually, with pilots and phased expansion across facilities.

Critics say the slow rollout means very few people will benefit in the near term.

Based on DOC data, the MRRA Today Coalition estimates that only about 81 people out of roughly 3,200 who could potentially qualify will actually receive early release under the current implementation plan.

They also say that outcome shows the rollout itself is producing racial disparities, pointing to timelines from the corrections department indicating that full implementation of the earned-release program may not occur until late 2027, more than four years after the law took effect.

DOC says implementation takes time

The corrections department has said the program requires building entirely new systems, including individualized rehabilitation plans, risk-assessment tools, victim input processes, and staff training across Minnesota prisons.

Officials say the phased rollout is intended to ensure safety and consistent implementation statewide and that people of color were not excluded from the early phases of the act’s implementation.

“The initial stages of MRRA reviews were limited to a small number of people who met specific eligibility criteria,” the DOC said in a statement. “The small number of early reviews reflects the program’s limited implementation, not the exclusion of any group.”

For people like Derrick who have been inside the system, he says the MRRA was supposed to create hope for people working to rebuild their lives inside prison, but that hope only works if the system is applied fairly.