58
Opinion of the Court
(Loken, J., concurring); United States v. Becak, 954 F. 2d 386, 388 (CA6), cert. denied, 504 U. S. 945 (1992).
Section 3585(a) and related sentencing provisions confirm this interpretation. Section 3585(a) provides that a federal sentence "commences" when the defendant is received for transportation to or arrives at "the official detention facility at which the sentence is to be served." Title 18 U. S. C. § 3621, in turn, provides that the sentenced defendant "shall be committed to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons," § 3621(a), which "may designate any available penal or correctional facility . . . , whether maintained by the Federal Government or otherwise . . . , that the Bureau determines to be appropriate and suitable," § 3621(b) (emphasis added). The phrase "official detention facility" in § 3585(a) therefore must refer to a correctional facility designated by the Bureau for the service of federal sentences, where the Bureau retains the discretion to "direct the transfer of a prisoner from one penal or correctional facility to another." § 3621(b).
This reading of § 3585(a) is reinforced by other provisions governing the administration of federal sentences. For example, § 3622 gives the Bureau authority to release a prisoner from the place of his imprisonment for a limited period to "participate in a training or educational program in the community while continuing in official detention at the prison facility," § 3622(b), or to "work at paid employment in the community while continuing in official detention at the penal or correctional facility," § 3622(c). Because the words "official detention" should bear the same meaning in subsections (a) and (b) of § 3585 as they do in the above related sentencing statutes, see Estate of Cowart v. Nicklos Drilling Co., 505 U. S. 469, 479 (1992) ("[T]he basic canon of statutory construction [is] that identical terms within an Act bear the same meaning"), credit for time spent in "official detention" under § 3585(b) is available only to those defendants who were detained in a "penal or correctional facility," § 3621(b), and who were subject to BOP's control.
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