Parole declined in 70 per cent of cases - report

Photo / Sarah Bicknell

The Parole Board held 4546 hearings last year and declined to release offenders in 70.6 per cent of them, the board says in its annual report, released today.

Overall, the board's work increased by 9.8 per cent to 9133 hearings including compliance monitoring of offenders already on parole and victim submissions.

Board chairman Judge David Carruthers said "structured decision-making" was a constant preoccupation.

"It is a never-ending one as new research shows new techniques and aspects which contribute to a safe release," he said.

"We remind ourselves that the primary function of a parole board is to make decisions for the safe release of prisoners and their management for the last period of their sentence with a right to recall."

Judge Carruthers said international research showed release with the right to recall was three to four times more successful in preventing reoffending than automatic release at the end of a sentence.

"That is our central role and international research also supports the best way of working is to be guided by a structured decision-making tool," he said.

"There is a constant and never-ending dynamic struggle to find and refine such a tool.

"It is an ever-changing matter because situations, climates, culture and research provoke change but we have continued to concentrate on this aspect of our decision-making."

- NZPA