天美影院

Who we are

The Parole Board is an independent body that carries out risk assessments on prisoners to determine whether they can be safely released into the community. It was established in 1968 under the Criminal Justice Act 1967 and became an independent executive non-departmental public body on 1 July 1996 under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

We have 300 Parole Board members who make the assessments and decisions. We employ around 220 members of staff to support them, .

Our job is to determine if someone is safe to release. We do that with great care, and public safety is our number one priority. We deal with 22,000 cases a year, which are referred to us by the Ministry of Justice once prisoners have served the punishment determined by the courts. Parole Board decisions are solely focused on whether a prisoner would represent a significant risk to the public after release. The risk assessment is based on detailed evidence found in the dossier (a collection of documents relating to the prisoner) and evidence provided at the oral hearing.

Key Statistics

• Number of oral hearings conducted in 2023/24: 8684

• 11,355 prisoners were refused release at oral and paper hearings
• 4370 were released
• 393 were recommended for moves to open prison

The percentage of offenders who committed serious further offences in 2023/24 following a release decision was 0.5%

Our responsibilities

Our primary role is to determine whether prisoners serving indeterminate sentences, and those serving certain determinate sentences for serious offences, continue to represent a significant risk to the public.

The main cases we oversee are for prisoners serving:

• life sentences and sentences of imprisonment for public protection (IPP), under the .

• extended determinate sentences (EDS), under the Criminal Justice Act 2003
• sentences for offenders of particular concern, including terrorists and serious child sex offenders, under the .

We also consider:

• the re-release of prisoners who are recalled to prison for breach of their licence conditions under the .