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Throughout the reporting period, there were 9026 hearings which related to 7120 cases. The following business was conducted by the Board from 1 July 2003 to 30 June 2004:

	2002-03	2003-04	% Change
Board sittings (days)	468	537	15
Totals
Home detention	3009	3966	32
Parole	1842	1732	(6)
Postponement of consideration for parole	4	8	100
Release on conditions (final & statutory release dates)	1033	621	(40)
Variation of conditions	131	285	118
Discharge of conditions	3	5	67
Revocations	38	71	87
Recall applications	367	389	6
Applications - Order that offender not be released	21	34	62
Early referral for consideration of parole	32	9	(72)
All cases considered	6480	7120

Note 1: The methodology of compiling the Board statistics throughout the annual report uses the outcome of hearings where the decision by the Board has been approved, declined, postponed or revoked. They do not include adjourned, reserved or deferred outcomes. Including these outcomes would provide a misleading perception of the overall cases reported. The number of hearings will always differ from the number of cases considered.

Note 2: All dates for reported statistics are hearing dates.

The year’s highlights

• All ‘front-end ’ home detention hearings increased by 27% in 2003-04. Declined outcomes (50%) were 5% greater than 2002-03.
• ‘Back-end ’ home detention hearings increased by 59%. Of these, 60% of applications were declined. This compares to 61% declined in 2002-03.
• Parole hearings reduced by 6% compared to 2002-03. 59% of all cases were declined, compared with 51% in 2002-03.
• The overall number of home detention and parole hearings increased by 15%. Of these, 54% were declined. In 2002-03, 49% of hearings were declined.
• Board sittings increased by 15%.

1. Home detention

Front-end (in custody)	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	1395	1219
Declined	1156	1472
TOTAL	2551	2691
Front-end (deferred)
Approved	Note 3	403
Declined	Note 3	142
TOTAL	N/A	545
Pre-parole (back-end home detention)
Approved	175	289
Declined	283	441
TOTAL	458	730

Note 3: For 2002-03, figures for front-end (deferred) cases were not separated for reporting but were included in front-end (in custody) cases.

2. Parole

	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	895	707
Declined	947	1025
TOTAL	1842	1732

3. Postponement of consideration for parole

Cases dealt with	2002-03	2003-04
TOTAL	4	8

4. Release on conditions (FRD and SRD)

	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	995	609
Declined	38	12
TOTAL	1033	621

Note 4: A reporting ambiguity has arisen where the Board has not been able to distinguish accurately final release date (FRD) and statutory release date (SRD) cases and to compare them for the two reporting years.

Note 5: Offenders serving a determinate sentence for a serious violent offence imposed prior to 30 June 2002 must be released at the completion of two-thirds of their sentence. This explains the significant decrease for 2003-04.

5. Variation of conditions

Home detention	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	79	216
Declined	4	16
TOTAL	83	232

 

Parole	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	40	50
Declined	8	3
TOTAL	48	53

6 Discharge of conditions

Home detention	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	0	1
Declined	0	0
TOTAL	0	1

 

Parole	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	1	2
Declined	2	2
TOTAL	3	4

7. Revocations

	2002-03	2003-04
Home detention front-end	28	41
Home detention pre-parole	1	15
Home detention front-end (deferred)	Note 6	3
Parole	8	7
Section 105 Reviews under CJA?	1	5
TOTAL	38	71

Note 6: This was not available for reporting in 2002-03

? Criminal Justice Act 1985

8. Recall applications

From parole	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	231	222
Declined	53	71
TOTAL	284	293

 

From home detention	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	71	76
Declined	9	20
TOTAL	80	96

 

From compassionate release	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	2	0
Declined	1	0
TOTAL	3	0

9. Order that offender not be released (section 107 Parole Act 2002)

	2002-03	2003-04
TOTAL	21	34

Note 7: A breakdown of approved and declined orders cannot be provided.

Note 8: Applications for an offender not to be released were previously dealt with under section 105 of the Criminal Justice Act 1985. These are currently made under section 107 of the Parole Act 2002. In some cases, the total figures represented here combine both Acts.

10. Early referral for consideration of parole

	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	13	4
Declined	16	5
TOTAL	29	9

 

Compassionate release on parole	2002-03	2003-04
Approved	2	0
Declined	1	0
TOTAL	3	0

11. Reviews of Board decisions

	2002-03	2003-04
Review of board decisions	107	108

12. Appeals

	2002-03	2003-04
Appeals to the High Court	0	3
Judicial reviews	0	2
TOTAL	0	5

Offenders released on parole

a. Offenders serving indeterminate sentences

Offenders sentenced to life imprisonment or preventive detention become eligible to be considered for release on parole after 10 years unless the court has imposed a longer minimum non-parole period.

Offenders released serving indeterminate sentence	2002-03	2003-04
Preventive detention	3	2
Life imprisonment	29	18
TOTAL	32	20

b. Offenders serving determinate sentences

i. Prior to 1 July 2002

Offenders sentenced to long-term determinate sentences (more than 12 months under the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1985) become eligible for parole after serving one-third of their sentence, unless they were classified as Serious Violent Offenders (SVOs). If classified as SVOs , they are entitled to be released after serving two-thirds of their sentence, unless the sentencing court imposed a minimum period of imprisonment, or, if the Department of Corrections makes an application (under section 107 of the Parole Act) that the offender not be released. The Board is only required to impose release conditions for offenders released at their final release date.

ii. After 1 July 2002

Offenders imprisoned for less than 2 years under the provisions of the Sentencing Act 2002 are entitled to be released having served half of their sentence, without recourse to the Board. Offenders sentenced to more than 2 years are eligible for consideration for parole after serving one-third of their sentence, but may be required by the Board to serve their entire sentence.

Offence types

Note 9:

a. These figures are based on board hearing orders. They include offenders who have been sentenced under the Criminal Justice Act 1985 and the Sentencing Act 2002. Offenders eligible for parole must be sentenced to over two years to be heard by the Board. They do not include offenders released at final release (two-thirds) date or recalled offenders subsequently released.

b. Offenders have only been counted once for each period of imprisonment even where there may have been multiple orders of the Board during that period. ‘Other’ offence types include foreign offences, dishonesty, property and serious damage.