Parole Board

The Parole Board is the independent body that carries out risk assessments on prisoners to determine whether they can be safely released into the community, as gov.uk's own organisational description confirms. It sits apart from the prison and probation service that supervises offenders day to day: gov.uk records that the Parole Board is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Ministry of Justice, reflecting its statutory independence from government in individual release decisions.

Its remit covers several categories of prisoner. Gov.uk guidance explains that the Parole Board decides whether prisoners who are serving certain types of sentences can be released, and that the sentences it deals with include life sentences, indeterminate sentences for public protection, some fixed sentences and recall cases, as well as advising on transfers of some prisoners from closed to open conditions.

Decision-making follows a structured process. A single member first reviews the prisoner's dossier of reports and offending history, and if the case is not straightforward it proceeds to an oral hearing before a panel of one, two, or three members who hear evidence from the prisoner and other witnesses on the risk posed. Gov.uk sets out three possible outcomes of a hearing: release, where the Parole Board has directed the release of a prisoner, it is up to the Ministry of Justice to make the arrangements; a recommended move to open conditions, which the Ministry of Justice must still approve; or a further review, sometimes called a 'knockback', with a new review date set within the statutory limit.