This book is concerned to explore the changing role of the Parole Board across the range of its responsibilities, including the prediction of risk and deciding on the release (or continued detention) of the growing number of recalled prisoners and of those subject to indeterminate sentences. In doing so it aims to rectify the lack of attention that has been given – by lawyers, academics and practitioners – to ‘back door sentencing’ (where the real length of a sentence is decided by those who take the decision to release) compared to ‘front door sentencing' (decisions taken by judges or magistrates in court).
Particular attention is given in this book to the important changes made to the role and working of the Parole Board as a result of the impact of the early release scheme of the Criminal Justice Act 2005, with the Parole Board now deciding in Panels concerned with determinate sentence prisoners, lifers and recalled prisoners. A wide range of significant issues, and case law, has arisen as a result of these changes, which the contributors to this book, leading authorities in the field, aim to explore.
Contents
1 Introduction, Nicola Padfield
Part One: Setting the scene
2 Who should we keep locked up?, Duncan Nichol
3 Parole and Risk Assessment, Stephen Shute
4 The Parole Board and the Changing Face of Public Law, Mark Elliott
5 Why fairness matters in criminal justice, Alison Liebling
6 The New Zealand Parole Board: independence and domestic and international challenges, Tony Ellis
Part Two: Dealing with indeterminacy
7 Dealing with indeterminacy: life sentences and IPP, Terry McCarthy
8 The Parole Board as a court, Simon Creighton
9 The Parole Board: Current Practice and Future Changes: a judicial member’s perspective, Anthony Thornton
Part Three: Recall: Challenges for the Parole Board and NOMS
10 The Recall and Re-release of Determinate Sentence Prisoners, Jo Thompson
11 Discretion, Offender attributes and the recall process, Helen Collins
12 Recall: Contested facts and risk assessment, Hamish Arnott
Part Four: Is predicting risk fair?
13 Offenders’ views on risk assessment, Gill Attrill and Glenda Niell
14 MAPPA, parole and the management of high risk offenders in the community, Hazell Kemshall
15 The paradoxical effects of stringent risk management: community failure and sex offenders, Jackie Craissati
Part Five: Pulling the threads together
16 Public Confidence – the real challenge, Christine Glenn
17 A personal overview, Hugh Southey
Index
