Cite as: 531 U. S. 230 (2001)
Opinion of the Court
may exercise a great deal of discretion in determining who among the eligible nonviolent offenders may be released." App. 17. But, the District Court held, the BOP may not categorically count out, "based upon sentencing factors or weapon possession," inmates whose underlying conviction was for a nonviolent crime. Id., at 18. Accordingly, the District Court ordered the BOP "to reconsider Lopez's eligibility for early release." Id., at 19.
The Eighth Circuit reversed. Bellis v. Davis, 186 F. 3d 1092 (1999). Section 3621(e)(2)(B), the Court of Appeals observed, "states only that the prison term of an inmate convicted of a nonviolent offense 'may be reduced by the Bureau of Prisons.' " Id., at 1094 (quoting 18 U. S. C. § 3621(e)(2)(B)). This discretionary formulation, the Eighth Circuit reasoned, allows the Bureau to devise a regime based on criteria that can be uniformly applied. The statute grants no entitlement to any inmate or class of inmates, the Court of Appeals noted, and it does not instruct the Bureau to make "individual, rather than categorical, assessments of eligibility for inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses." 186 F. 3d, at 1094. The court further reasoned that, to the extent Congress left a gap in § 3621(e)(2)(B) for the Bureau to fill, deference is owed the BOP's interpretation under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 843-845, 866 (1984), so long as the interpretation is a permissible construction of the statute. 186 F. 3d, at 1095. The Bureau had elected to deny early release to certain categories of prisoners, notably recidivists and firearms carriers, whose "conduct indicates that they pose a serious risk to public safety." Ibid. That decision, the Court of Appeals concluded, "represents a manifestly permissible construction of the statute and an appropriate exercise of the BOP's discretion." Ibid.
The Eighth Circuit next explained why its earlier decision in Martin did not control this case, which trains on the BOP's 1997 regulation: Martin addressed only the Bureau's 1995
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