Recent changes in parole release

Recent changes in parole release

By: Tony Quinlan

Tony Quinlan highlights significant new provisions for determinate sentence prisoners sentenced under the Criminal Justice Act 1991

As most serving prisoners are aware, 4th April 2005 was a significant date in the world of Prison Law. It was on this date that the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 came into force. Not only did this Act introduce Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences, it also altered the way in which determinate sentence prisoners are dealt with. The important feature of 4th April 2005 is that this was the date at which the offence was to have been committed. Any offence committed before 4th April 2005 was dealt with by virtue of the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and any offence committed on or after 4th April 2005 fell within the 2003 Act provisions.

The Criminal Justice Act 1991 provided that any person serving a sentence of four years or more would be deemed a ‘long term’ prisoner. Under these provisions a prisoner would serve half of his designated period in custody and would then become eligible to apply for early release on parole licence. If he were successful in that application he would remain on licence to the three quarter point of his sentence when his licence would expire. The final quarter of his sentence would be the ‘at risk’ period – a period that would only take effect if the prisoner were convicted of another offence.

Any prisoner subject to the release provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 who was not successful in his application for early release at the halfway point of his sentence would nonetheless be released at his non-parole date at the two thirds points of sentence. The prisoner would still remain on licence to the three quarter point (longer in prison but shorter on licence) and again the licence would expire at the three-quarter point and the ‘at risk’ period would take effect.

Any prisoner who was recalled to prison under these provisions would be liable to be released at the three-quarter point of his sentence but the ‘at risk’ period would then become a new licence period and the licence would remain in force to the sentence expiry date.

The provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 are much simpler. Under those provisions, any determinate sentence prisoner would serve half of his sentence in custody, be released at the halfway point and remain on licence for the other half of the sentence to the sentence expiry date.

As of Monday 9th June 2008, the provisions of Section 26 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 came into force, as did Prison Service Instruction (PSI) 17/2008. The new provisions provide that any determinate sentence prisoner sentenced under the Criminal Justice Act 1991 provisions will now be eligible for release at the halfway point of his licence and will remain on licence to his sentence expiry date. These provisions then have the effect of standardising release procedures and bringing 1991 Act prisoners in line with 2003 Act prisoners.

There are, however, a number of conditions that apply before these new provisions have effect.

A Discretionary Conditional Release prisoner (a 1991 Act prisoner) will be eligible for release under the new provisions providing: -

1. He was sentenced under the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1991;
2. He has a parole eligibility date of 9th June 2008 or later;
3. He is not serving a sentence for a specified sexual or violent offence as listed at Schedule 15 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

The new provisions then do not apply to all Criminal Justice Act 1991 sentence prisoners.

Any prisoner who has passed his parole eligibility date will not fall within these provisions because to do so would be unfair. The 1991 Act provisions provide for longer in prison but a shorter period on licence and it would be unfair for a prisoner to spend more than half of his sentence in prison and then be released on a longer licence period than would otherwise have been the case.

These are the only provisions that have thus far have been put in place. Until such a time as the new recall provisions under the new Act are introduced, any prisoner released under the new release provisions and recalled before the commencement of the new recall provisions remains subject to the current arrangements for release after recall i.e. is entitled to be re-released from recall at the three quarter point of his sentence. It is likely that the new recall provisions will be introduced on or after July 2008.