Parole Board Hearings: Law and Practice, 2nd edn. H.Arnott and S.Creighton. London: Legal Action Group (2010) 433pp. £30.00hb ISBN 978‐1‐903307‐64‐9

Abstract

This is the second edition of a hugely useful book. The chairman of the Parole Board, Sir David Latham, in a foreword calls it an ‘essential book for anyone concerned, in any capacity, with the work of the Parole Board’. The book gives a detailed description of the complex legal world in which the Parole Board attempts to carry out its duties, with chapters on public funding and on the assessment of risk, as well as more obviously lawyer-like chapters on determinate and indeterminate sentences, and so on. The fact that the authors are leading practitioners in the field (with Bhatt Murphy solicitors) rightly gives users confidence that this is sound legal advice. (Perhaps the authors are surprisingly uncritical: but then they are writing an advice manual, not a treatise for reform.) But the book also raises many questions. Why is this area of law so complicated? This second edition was published in 2010. Even before the current Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill started its journey through parliament, we needed a third edition to deal with such cases as Faulkner [2011] EWCA Civ 349 or Guntrip [2010] EWHC 3188 (Admin) on the appropriate measure of damages for delay, and Osborn and Booth [2010] EWCA Civ 1409 on the ‘right’ to an oral hearing. It is a fast moving area: the law is so complex that the courts are frequently called upon to try to do justice in a minefield. In the long run, real ‘sentence review courts’ might be fairer, and save time and money, compared with this current system, where the Parole Board is continually squeezed, despite the Court of Appeal's decision in Brooke [2008] EWCA Civ 29, that the Board was not a sufficiently independent court to comply with Article 5(4) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Why is Parole Board law and practice still seen (by policy makers as much as by lawyers) as part of ‘prison law’ and not as part of ‘sentencing law’? It makes no sense that criminal lawyers represent their clients at sentencing hearings, but then have little, or probably no, involvement representing them on the equally important decisions taken as they move towards release. Last year the Parole Board considered 14,159 cases of offenders recalled to prison during the second part of their sentence (see Parole Board 2011, p.6). Many of these offenders will have been charged with new offences, and so may, under the current system, have one or more lawyers for these, and another (if they are lucky!) for their Parole Board review, considering difficult issues which affect whether they are held as remand or convicted prisoners, with important consequences for the length of any subsequent sentence. The sad fact is that they often appear better represented in the police station and at trial (and even here, of course, there is much to be desired) than they are when passing time in prison awaiting a decision from a ‘panel’ (often one person) of the Parole Board, often sitting on a date not even communicated to the prisoner. Will all those concerned ‘in any capacity’ with the work of the Board (to quote the foreword of Sir David once again) have access to this book? Those most obviously concerned are prisoners. I have recently been interviewing recalled prisoners on their perceptions of the parole and recall process. Not only do they often not understand the process, they often have little access to those who can offer them reliable advice. Prison officers are clearly not experts, and simply encourage prisoners to put in written ‘apps’, or applications, for further information. These often run into dead ends. Probation officers seem invisible, and solicitors hard to contact. Whilst Arnott and Creighton's book is, indeed, an invaluable guide, it is depressing that so many of the Parole Board's processes remain so difficult to understand. Prisoners deserve a more open and accountable release system than that which Arnott and Creighton describe so well. Nicola Padfield Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge.