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The Parole Board for Scotland
05/12/2008
The Parole Board for Scotland Annual Report 2007, which covers the 40th year of the Board in Scotland, was published today.
It shows that out of the 894 determinate sentence prisoners whose cases were referred to the Board 266 were recommended for release on parole. This compares with 283 out of 754 in 2006.
The number of life sentence prisoners released on licence in circumstances where a Tribunal of the Board was satisfied that it was no longer necessary for the protection of the public that the prisoner should be confined was 75.
The number of determinate sentence prisoners who opted out of consideration by the Board increased from 75 cases in 2006 to 98 cases in 2007.
Chairman of the Board Professor Sandy Cameron CBE said:
"It has been another busy year for the Parole Board for Scotland but public safety remains our top priority. All involved take their role very seriously and we will never be complacent about our work.
"We have continually examined our practice our practice as issues have arisen to ensure our work can stand up to scrutiny. This is importance in both the protection of the public but also in ensuring that the rights of the prisoners are given proper attention.
"There are two major differences to the form of the report this year. The first is the report covers 15 months as we have now moved to a reporting cycle that will follow the financial year. And second is this year's report is also a greener report as we have decided to make it a web only publication.
"I would like to thank all the staff for their hard work and commitment over the last year."
The Parole Board takes decisions on the release of life sentence prisoners and on the timing of the release on parole of determinate sentence prisoners serving sentences of four years or more.
Prisoners sentenced to four years imprisonment or more on or after October 1, 1993 are automatically released from custody when they have served two-thirds of the sentence.
This year's annual report covers from January 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008. Future annual reports will now run March to April.
As this annual report covers a 15 month period the figures cannot be directly compared with those in the 2006 report as they only covered a 12 month period.