This is a guest post by Faith Geary, acting Chief Executive of the Parole Board.
Navigating the parole process
We at the Parole Board appreciate that the parole process can be complicated to navigate for prisoners going through it and for others affected by the process, such as victims and survivors of crime, families and friends. There are some misunderstandings around how the parole process works, so we wanted to try and clarify some of these.
It is sometimes misunderstood that prisoners must ‘apply’ for parole. This is not correct, prisoners cannot apply for a parole review. The Parole Board will only commence a parole review once an individual is referred by the Secretary of State for Justice. The Ministry of Justice refer all prisoners to the Parole Board for a review after they have calculated when a review is due, usually after their period of punishment has passed. If a prisoner is refused release it is then the Ministry of Justice who set their next review date. There is typically an interval of around 18 months to two years between reviews.
Reports are produced about prisoners and compiled in what is known as the dossier. Dossiers are owned by the Ministry of Justice and they are shared at the beginning of the parole review with the prisoner and they are given a copy of the Parole Board’s final decision at the end of the review by the Offender Management Unit in the prison they are being held in.
The test for whether a prisoner is suitable for release is solely based on a risk assessment that considers whether a panel believe that it is necessary for the protection of the public that a prisoner must continue to be confined in prison.
Transparency
The Parole Board welcomes transparency, it is only positive that the public better understand our work and the vital role we play in the justice system, and protecting the public from harm. Since 2018 we have been providing summaries of decisions, which are primarily requested by victims but also by the media and members of the public. In 2023/24 we produced around 1700 of these summaries, setting out the reasons for our decisions.
Reconsideration
Since 2019 our decisions have been subject to reconsideration where either a prisoner or the Secretary of State can apply for a decision to be reconsidered. The bar for reconsideration is high and it must be due to a decision being irrational, procedurally unfair or contain an error of law. If the application is granted then the parole review will need to be undertaken afresh. Whilst the Secretary of State can apply for a release decision to be reconsidered, the final decision as to whether a prisoner is suitable for release lies with the Parole Board.
Public hearings
Since 2022 we are also now holding some parole hearings in public. Anyone is entitled to apply to the Parole Board for a prisoner’s oral hearing to be held in open (streamed to the public and the media), but if there are reasons why a public hearing is not appropriate then the application will not be granted. A hearing will be held in public if it is in the interests of justice. If an oral hearing is not public but there are victims who wish to observe then they now have an automatic right to request to attend and this will be decided upon by the panel chair of the oral hearing. The majority of these requests are now being granted.
BBC documentary
We are also working collaboratively with the BBC on a second series of the Parole documentary which will go out at the end of September 2024 on the BBC and iPlayer
These steps have led to our processes and decision-making becoming more transparent to victims, the public and prisoners themselves. We are continually looking at how we can improve the way the parole process works, so people going through the system can understand and have confidence in how we keep the public safe.
Thanks to Koestler Arts for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can find out more about the Koestler Awards here.
