Suspended Time

A legal term used in a criminal sentence to describe the amount of time in jail or prison that is not actually served in the facility. Rather, the time is paused for a period of time based on certain requirements. The commonly used requirement is good behavior but can include some other conditions.

For example, a sentence with suspended time: “12 months in the house of corrections with all but 30 days suspended for one year conditioned upon good behavior and no contact with the victim. This means the defendant will serve 30 days in the house of corrections the and the remaining 11 months are suspended for one year.” The suspended time in this example is 11 months and the sentence ends one year from the date it is issued.