New Zealand Parole Board
Open-knowledge reference entry
The New Zealand Parole Board is an independent statutory body established in 2002 that considers offenders for early release or parole from prison. The Board's task "is to undertake an assessment of the risk that long-term sentenced offenders might pose to the safety of the community if they were to be released before the end of their sentence".
The Board reviews all prisoners serving sentences of more than two years (defined in the Corrections Act as 'long term') – after the prisoner has served one third of their sentence. However in certain cases, the sentencing judge may designate a longer minimum non-parole period. Short-term prisoners (on sentences of less than two years) are not required to appear before the Parole Board; they are automatically released after serving half their sentence. In other words, an offender sentenced to 18 months in prison will be released after nine months.
For long term prisoners released by the Board, the Board also sets release conditions, such as a requirement to live at a specific address, or not to consume alcohol or drugs. Once the conditions have been set, it becomes the responsibility of Community Corrections to manage the offender for the period of time the conditions apply. If an offender breaches any of his or her conditions when released before the end of their sentence, Corrections may apply to the Board for them to be recalled to prison to complete their full sentence.
History
As a British colony, New Zealand adopted the penal system common in Britain and the country’s first jails were established in the 1840s.
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This entry incorporates text from “New Zealand Parole Board” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.