Parole Board: Police

(asked on 20th February 2023) - View Source

Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department is taking steps to ensure Parole Board panellists have policing backgrounds.


Answered by
Damian Hinds Portrait
Damian Hinds
Minister of State (Education)
This question was answered on 27th February 2023

The Parole Board makes very difficult assessments of risk and needs a diverse range of expertise and experience among its members. Our Root and Branch Review of 2022 therefore included a proposal to ensure law enforcement members sit on ‘top tier’ parole cases, which we will implement as soon as parliamentary time allows.

We launched a recruitment campaign on 16 February 2023 to recruit around 25 panel members with law enforcement experience. This will almost double the existing number and will increase the overall proportion of panel members with law enforcement experience from 8% to 16%.

Recruiting more members with law enforcement backgrounds will add to the wealth of expertise amongst current Parole Board members, by first-hand, frontline experience of dealing with offenders, something that is key to assessing the risk presented by a prisoner.

Reticulating Splines