A STUDY OF VARIABLES RELATED TO THE SELECTION OF LONG-TERM PRISONERS FOR PAROLE*

Abstract

The term parole is used by the prison system to describe the release of an offender on licence before the normal end of his sentence, subject to the condition that misbehaviour during the period of the licence may lead to recall to the institution. In addition, some form of supervision is usually included in the licence in this country. Such a course of action is intended to be useful in several ways, not all of which are usually stressed; first, it is hoped that parole may be viewed as a part of the correctional process, reducing the likelihood of recidivism ; secondly, it provides an opportunity to assess a person's likelihood of recidivism on the basis of his current behaviour, rather than on the behaviour shown prior to incarceration ; thirdly, it is hoped that the chance of getting parole may cause prisoners to modify their be haviour in prison for the better; fourthly, it allows closer supervision of newly released offenders in society than is usually possible ; finally, it offers a considerable saving in cost, as care in the community at large is generally cheaper than institutional care. Parole, as it is currently used, did not (as Newman, 1964, stresses) develop from any specific source or experiment, but is an outgrowth of a number of independent measures, including the conditional pardon, apprenticeship by indenture, the transportation of criminals to America and Australia, the English and Irish experiences with the system of ticket of leave, and the work of American prison reformers during the nineteenth century (p. 4). The present system really dates from the experiments tried from 1876 in the Elmira reformatory in the United States, where indeterminate sentences were given, release being dependent on obtaining parole. Parole is exten sively used now in the United States, but its use has only really developed since the 1930s, so that it has now become an integral part of the total correctional process. The parole system in Britain is a recent innovation; prior to 1968, its forerunner, the system of release on licence, was by and large used only with prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment, corrective training, or borstal training, or with young prisoners. The use of parole itself can be dated from the Criminal Justice Act of 1967, under section 60 of which every person serving (in effect) a fixed sentence of imprisonment of over 18 months is eligible for consideration for parole when he has served one third of his sentence, or 12 months, whichever is the longer. Unless he specifically declines the opportunity, each prisoner who is eligible for parole has his case