Recalling Conditionally Released Prisoners in England and Wales
| Author | Nicola Padfield |
| DOI | 10.1177/206622031200400104 |
| Published date | 01 March 2012 |
| Date | 01 March 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
34
European Journal of Probation
University of Bucharest
www.ejprob.ro
Vol. 4, No1, 2012, pp 34 – 45
ISSN: 2006 – 2203
Recalling conditionally released prisoners in England and Wales
Nicola Padfield1
Abstract:
This article explores the recent enormous increase in the number of prisoners
recalled each year to prison in England and Wales: prisoners who had previously
been released, either automatically or on the direction of the Parole Board. It
explores law and practice, focusing in the analysis on pre-release processes, the
process of recall and on the prisoner’s journey towards re-release. Having
considered the role of the Parole Board and of the executive more generally, the
paper concludes that there should be a review of whether „sentence review courts‟
would work better to encourage offenders to earn their way out of prison and off
supervision.
Keywords: Prisoners – England and Wales – Conditional release – Recall - Parole
Introduction
It is well known that the English and Welsh prison population is high by European
standards. On 16 September 2011 there were 87,120 people in prison custody
(82,876 men and 4,244 women). The majority of these prisoners are serving
determinate sentences, but a growing number face indeterminate (life) sentences.
Custodial sentences are designed nowadays, in the main, so that prisoners serve part
of their sentence in prison, and part in the community. A significant part of the
explanation for the rising prison population is the number of prisoners recalled to
prison, and the length of time they then spend back inside (before being re-released).
In this article, I review the law and practice on sentence implementation which is
resulting in an increasing number of prisoners serving more of what might have been
the community part of their sentence in prison: a practice which is both expensive,
and often, I argue, unfair.
A determinate sentence has a fixed end point: a four year sentence finishes after four
years. But most prisoners are released at half time, and many are eligible to apply for
release up to 135 days before the half way point, on „HDC‟ (Home Detention Curfew,
subject to electronic monitoring). The published „prison population‟ figures give the
number of prisoners on HDC (2,745 on 16 September 2011) in addition to the prison
population, but they do not mention the number of prisoners who have been
conditionally released, but who are not on HDC. This is presumably because the
„system‟ considers the HDC offenders still to be part of the „custodial population‟. It
1 Senior Lecturer at the University of Cambridge; Recorder of the Crown Court . Correspondence:
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge CB3 0DG, UK; Email: nmp21@cam.ac.uk
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