29. Memorandum submitted by
the Parole Board
There are two issues on which the Board would
like to make representations to the Select Committee.
RECALLS
The first is concerning the current requirement
for the Board to review every decision to recall a prisoner to
custody during their parole or licence period.
Our statistics demonstrate that the number of
times the Board do not agree that recall was appropriate is very
small. Out of 442 recall cases that went to an oral hearing in
the period April 2006 to January 2007 in only eight cases was
the recall decision rejected by members. In paper hearing cases
the rate is even lower. In January 2007, out of 1,031 paper cases
there were none where the members did not agree with the recall
decision. The table below shows a breakdown of what happened in
these cases.
RECALL DECISIONS—JANUARY
2007
|
| Outcome | Number
| % of total |
|
| Recall confirmed—release immediately |
43 | 4.2%
|
| Recall confirmed—release at specified future date
| 54 | 5.2%
|
| Recall confirmed—reviewed at specified date
| 280 | 27.2%
|
| Recall confirmed—decline to set date |
642 | 62.3%
|
| Recall rejected—release immediately |
0 | 0.0%
|
| Recall rejected—release at specified date
| 0 | 0.0%
|
| Recall rejected—review at specified date
| 0 | 0.0%
|
| PB Panel refers to Oral Hearing | 12
| 1.2% |
|
| Total | 1,031
| |
|
Where the recall was appropriate and there are risk issues
which mean that the prisoner cannot be managed on licence, we
would not be expected to authorise release. If we find they are
a risk or, as is more common, there is no risk management plan,
we are bound by the Directions to refuse to release. It is unreasonable
to expect a decision to release from the Parole Board when we
have no information about how the offender is to be supervised
in the community or indeed where he is going to live.
For 2006-07 the projection from NOMS was that there would
be 11,000 recalls. However, by the end of January there had already
been over 12,000 and the final figure is likely to be in the region
of 14,500. The vast majority of these cases are short term prisoners.
The processes involved in setting up this recall system are complex
as they involve the Board, the Probation Service, the Home Office
Release and Recall Section as well as the Prison Service. The
Board considers it adds little value to the process in many cases
where the prisoner does not dispute the fact of his or her recall.
We are of the view that this could be an administrative process
provided there was a proper appeal procedure and it is our suggestion
is that the Board should act as the appellate authority here.
This would mean that we would only consider determinate sentence
recall cases when the prisoner appeals against an administrative
decision not to release him or her. Such an appeal could be in
relation to the issue of whether the recall was justified and
also whether the prisoner should be re-released sooner than the
date on which the Secretary of State, through the administrative
process, deems him or her suitable for release. We have a finite
number of members to sit on panels and resources have been hit
by other un-projected numbers of oral hearings, not least in respect
of IPP prisoners with short tariffs.
There are a number of options as to how this process would
work in practice. The Board would favour prisoners who had been
back in custody for a fixed time (say four weeks) to be released
administratively unless there were risk of harm issues involved
in which case the Board would retain jurisdiction over the decision
as to suitability for release rather than civil servants. Essentially,
these would be the sorts of case where the public had real concerns.
Another possible model would be that all recalls would be dealt
with administratively but that the prisoner would have an absolute
right to appeal the decision and the date of release to the appellate
authority and that the Board should act as that authority. Both
these options are predicated on the current legal test for release
which is based on the risk of further offending.
Another possibility would be to review this test. If the
presumption on recall was for re-release (as appeared to be envisaged
in the Halliday review that led to the Criminal Justice Act 2003)
the recall process would lead to more low risk of harm prisoners
being released earlier.
In its evidence to this committee in 2004, the Board spoke
of the impact of an increase in recalls. We are firmly of the
view that the present system is wasteful of resources, does little
to protect the public or to prevent re-offending and we would
ask for an urgent review along the lines we have suggested.
IPP SENTENCES
The second issue concerns the large number of IPP cases that
are coming through the system and the apparently unforeseen consequences
of this. We are reproducing below an article from the February
issue of our news letter, the Board Sheet, which sums up our concerns.
Chairman calls for debate on impact of IPP sentences
The Chairman of the Parole Board, Sir Duncan Nichol, has
called for a debate on the impact of the new indeterminate sentences
for public protection on the work of the Board, arguing that the
implications of the short tariff sentences were not properly thought
through when they were introduced, by the Criminal Justice Act
2003, in April 2005.
Duncan Nichol made the remarks in a speech he delivered to
the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at Kings College, London
on 14 December 2006. Speaking at Kings College, Duncan Nichol
said:
"As we look forward our key challenge will be to respond
effectively to the implications of the indeterminate sentence
for public protection, which is available where the offence is
one specified in the Act and the judge considers the defendant
to present a significant risk to the public of serious harm.
"Some speak of this sentence as replacing the old `automatic'
life sentence. However, the sentences are not analogous. The list
of qualifying offences for an automatic life sentence numbered
eleven, and it needed two before a life sentence was automatic.
The list of "specified" offences for an IPP numbers
153 and the sentence can be triggered by a first offence.
"Accordingly the numbers of IPP prisoners entering the
prison system, and eventually coming before the Board, is very
significant indeed. The population of IPP offenders in prison
is projected to grow to about 12,500 by 2011.
"Because the specified offence that led to the IPP sentence
may not in itself be serious, very many such prisoners have unusually
short tariffs. Half of offenders recently sentenced to IPP sentences
have received tariffs of 20 months or less and 20% under 18 months.
"The effect of this is that a prisoner might be entitled
to be considered for release almost as soon as he is received
into custody following trial. The prison has no time to assess
the individual for the purposes of writing reports and the Board's
role in assessing his risk to the public is rendered almost academic
by the fact that nothing has changed in the very short period
between the sentencing judge deciding he is a significant risk,
and the Board considering his case. The Board must make up its
own mind, regardless of what the judge said, but in practice there
is very little to go on. Hence an enormous amount of resources
are expended on what can sometimes appear to be a futile exercise.
"The global impact of IPPs will be that prison overcrowding
will increase; places on offending behaviour courses will be scarce;
prisoners may spend more time in custody awaiting such courses
when they might otherwise have been released earlier; time will
be spent writing parole reports by prison and probation staff
who have other duties; and the Parole Board will need increased
resources to deal with a quadrupling of our indeterminate case
work."
ROLE OF
JUDICIARY
Responding to claims that he had criticised judges for being
too quick to use the new sentences, Sir Duncan later said:
"I do not believe that the higher than anticipated use
of the IPP sentence is the result of judges using them too readily.
It is because, given the new sentencing rules brought in by the
Criminal Justice Act 2003, they have little choice but to do so
for dangerous offenders.
"Both the judiciary and the Parole Board are now having
to deal with the consequences of legislation that appears not
to have been given sufficient thought or long-term planning when
it was drawn up."
JUDICIAL REVIEW
We are also aware that in at least one case a private prison
is having to defend itself in relation to a judicial review brought
by a prisoner on the basis that despite receiving an IPP (with
a three year tariff) in November 2005, he is still not progressing
through the system and is detained in a holding prison.
An issue that arises is the difficulty in applying adequate
resources to the management of somebody on such a short tariff
within the private prison system, and the difficulty in transferring
him to a prison where he can "progress" through the
system within the time frame envisaged by the Judge who fixed
the tariff. It seems that nobody has fully considered this particular
lacuna when devising the IPP sentence.
16 April 2007
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