Parole Board publishes Annual Report

The Parole Board for Scotland has recently published its Annual Report 2010-11, which reveals that out of 606 determinate sentence prisoners whose cases were referred to the Board, 170 were recommended for release on parole.

The reports also shows that:

• The number of life sentence prisoners released on license in circumstances where a Tribunal of the Board was satisfied that it was no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the prisoner should be confined was 48.
• The number of prisoners who were granted parole and then subsequently referred back to the Board for consideration for recall to custody was 73 during the year, whereas the number of prisoners who were released at the two-thirds point of their sentence as required by law and then subsequently recalled was higher, at 117 for the year.
• The number of determinate sentence prisoners who opted out of consideration by the Board was 64 - a sharp increase from 2009-10.

Chairman of the Board, Sandy Cameron CBE, said: "Public safety is the Parole Board's number one consideration. Once again I believe that the information in this year's report shows that the decisions we take are based upon considered judgement.”

He went on to say that: "The vast majority of those released on parole abide by their licence conditions and stay on the right side of the law, but it will be noted that there is a continuing increase year on year in the number of extended sentence prisoners who have been recalled as a result of breaching their licence conditions. There is little information as to why, but this is a matter which would benefit from detailed research so that we can learn more about why a minority find the transition back into the community difficult."