MPs savage UK Parole Board
By Ian Dunt
An influential committee of MPs has savaged the UK’s Parole Board, saying members are coming under pressure to make decisions on serious offenders without key information.
MPs said the prison and probation services had proven unable to provide the timely and complete information necessary for the parole system to run effectively.
“The consequences for public safety of a wrong decision by the Parole Board about when it is safe to release an offender can be catastrophic,” said Edward Leigh, chairman of the public accounts committee, which released the report today.
“It is good that the board is now demanding harder evidence on which to base its decisions. But the key parts of the criminal justice system responsible for providing this information about offenders, HM Prison Service and the probation service, must work to do so on time and in full.”
In a damning assessment of the UK parole system, MPs said the board lacked the capacity to hear cases or obtain complete and timely information for its hearings.
But the report is sympathetic to the Board’s plight, saying its workload has doubled in the last five years while hearings have become significantly more complex – with the offender attending and answering questions.
The increase stems from the rising prison population and new sentencing regimes.
Two-thirds of oral hearings have not been held in their planned month, with 20 per cent of them taking place more than a year late.
“As the board acknowledges, these delays are unacceptable and costly,” the report reads.
Between September 2006 and June 2007, the board incurred direct costs of £1 million due to the delays. Keeping offenders who should have been released or transferred to open conditions cost HM Prison Service nearly £2 million over that period.
There are also concerns over the databases of records on which judgements can be made, with information being held on three separate and unconnected databases.
“With the prisons bursting at the seams, it is important that prisoners who should be released are released,” Mr Leigh continued.
“It is also of great concern to the public that prisoners might be being released who should not be.”
Prison overcrowding is becoming an increasingly serious issue. The government intends to build several new ‘Titan’ prisons, with a vastly expanded capacity, but they are opposed by both opposition parties, penal reform groups and a host of rehabilitation experts.
