Last month, we held a webinar to share the findings of our Young Adults and the Parole System report, which was co-authored by Rob Allen and Dr Laura Janes. You can watch a full recording of the online event below.

The event was attended by around 90 people working across the criminal justice system, including practitioners, policymakers, academics, and people working in the voluntary sector.

At the beginning of the webinar, Dr Laura Janes spoke to Ali, a young adult with experience of going through the parole process, and his probation officer. It was so valuable for everyone attending to hear his insights on what worked well, and what could be improved.

Ali really helped us start to think about the different ways young adults can be supported to be active participants in the parole process, and how they can be mindfully supported to become more mature and reduce risk-taking activities in advance of their case being heard.

Rob Allen and Dr Laura Janes then shared the report’s recommendations for HMPPS and the Parole Board. Andrea Bennett, Regional Probation Director for the North West and Operational Lead for working with Young Adults in the Probation Service, and Ronno Griffiths, Parole Board member, responded warmly to the recommendations and shared insights from their own professional experiences.

It remains to be seen if our partners at HMPPS and the Parole Board will be able to implement our recommendations when budgets and resources are stretched to capacity. However, all in attendance were united in their belief that young adults deserve a Parole process that can respond to their developmental needs.

Dr Rachel O’Rourke was our final speaker, and she spoke about how HMPPS Psychology Services were using the report to inform further research into the barriers preventing young adults from participating in the parole process – prompting a positive discussion about how this might lead to the more consistent use of psychological assessment tools for young adults.

We ended our session with a range of thoughtful questions from attendees for our panel of speakers, and we were very pleased to see that everyone who attended had been so engaged throughout the session.

T2A Criminal Justice Programme Manager, Laurie Hunte, adds: “These recommendations would change the parole process to the immense benefit of young adults, so we will do everything we can to ensure that they are implemented.

“Creative approaches like these will lead to more positive long-term outcomes.”

These conversations are just the beginning of an important journey towards a reformed parole process that will deliver better outcomes for young adults. We would encourage you to keep in touch with T2A to hear about next steps.

Want to learn more about our report on young adults and parole?

Read the full report

The co-authors of our Young Adults and the Parole System report, Rob Allen and Dr Laura Janes, share some insights into our scoping study and the parole landscape.

Sweeping Changes

The current Secretary of State for Justice has put the parole system at the heart of his reform agenda, introducing sweeping changes to both law and policy designed to “stop the release of dangerous offenders from prison”.

The changes have ranged from who may be referred to the Parole Board, to what professionals working for the Ministry of Justice can say to the Board in written and oral evidence. In the recent case of Bailey v SSJ the High Court said that one piece of guidance “may well have resulted in prisoners being released who would not otherwise have been released and in prisoners not being released who would otherwise have been released.” All the changes made by the current administration apply indiscriminately to anyone going through the process, regardless of age.

Young adults, currently defined by the Parole Board as 18- 21-year-olds, only make up around 2% of its overall case load. But data revealed in a new report on young adults and parole shows that there are some important differences in the characteristics of this cohort compared to older adults.

First, young adults are much more likely to appear before the Parole Board because they have been sent back to prison for alleged failures on supervision after automatic release from a standard sentence. The Board must then decide whether it’s safe to re-release them.

Last year 97% of all initial ‘paper reviews’ by the Parole Board of young adults were for recalls. Yet, across all age groups only 73% of cases concerned recalls.

A recent report by the Chief Inspector of Probation found that “most recalls to custody were caused by homelessness, a return to drug or alcohol misuse or a failure to ensure continuity of care pre and post release – not by re-offending”. Young adults can be particularly susceptible to being recalled given that their developing maturity may make it harder to comply with licence conditions.

Second, when young adults are considered in more depth and have a chance to explain themselves to the Parole Board at an oral hearing, they are much more likely to be released than older applicants. In 2022, 59% of all young adults were released following an oral hearing whereas the overall release rate for all reviews was one in four.

Last year 97% of all initial ‘paper reviews’ by the Parole Board of young adults were for recalls.

The T2A Alliance

In the 18 years since its Independent Commission published Lost in Transition, the Barrow Cadbury Trust has worked tirelessly to promote a more distinctive approach to young adults in the criminal justice system through the Transition to Adulthood (T2A) Alliance. This latest study looks at a relatively hidden corner of criminal justice that needs urgent attention.

It’s very welcome that existing Parole Board guidance says 18–21-year-olds should be presumed suitable for an oral hearing if they aren’t ‘released on the papers’, but the study suggests more should be done to enable release at the initial paper stage, or at least ensure oral hearings are convened as quickly as possible. Given the current pressures on prison places, it makes little sense to have young adults who are highly likely to be safe to release, recalled to prison, sometimes staying there for a year or more. The Chair of the Sentencing Council has recently encouraged the use of suspended sentences where appropriate in light of the high prison population.

The report also recommends that more should be done to ensure that young adults, many of whom have high levels of need, are able to effectively participate in the parole process with the support of legal representation. This could also go some way to counter the systemic discrimination that persists for minoritised groups in prison and which has still not been addressed five years on from the Lammy review. It will also assist the very few young adult women that come before the Board but require a specialised approach.

Young Adults

The T2A report also argues that the Parole Board should treat those up to 25 as young adults, which would not only reflect the latest research on brain development but bring practice into line with many other agencies. For example, thanks in part to the influence of work by the Howard League and T2A, courts now have to take account of the emotional and developmental age of an offender, and recognise that young people up to 25 are still developing neurologically.

Greater application of this evidence-based approach by both the Parole Board and HMPPS will bring parole more into line with other parts of the system. The report makes a number of simple recommendations such as making sure the Board asks for the right kind of information before reaching a decision. For example, when a young person has been in care, the Board should have information from social services. The Board should also interpret the test for release which it must apply in the light of what’s known about how young people mature, and how their risks of causing harm can be managed and reduced. The report recommends that the prison service gives young adults better access to the programmes, relationships and assistance which can help them prepare for a successful release.

Probation

Probation is also encouraged to provide more individualised support for young adults on licence in the community, but which does not overload them with complex requirements or impose conditions all but impossible to meet. The report finds mixed views about whether young adults are recalled too much but recommends this should be kept under close review, along with safeguards to prevent them going back to prison unnecessarily.

Given the relatively small number of young adults going through the parole process, and the obvious benefits to reform, it is hoped that these recommendations will be both feasible and welcomed.

Young Adults and the Parole System

Want to learn more?

Read the report