Prisoners must realise that parole is a privilege, not a right

Letters

ALLOW me to respond to the letter in your paper yesterday (Feb 14), under the heading, “Prisoners’ concerns genuine, they need help”.
Firstly, I wish to state for the record that all parole matters for Lakiemata jail have been heard and determined by the Parole Board at its last meeting in December 2016.
Most of those prisoners who signed that petition, have also gone to the National Court claiming some sort of human rights in the HR track of the National Court and sought orders to compel the board to meet and consider their matters.
The board has complied and done so – independently, on merits of the individual matters in accordance with its statutory mandate under the Parole Act.
It was rather unfortunate that the good governor had taken up the petition from the prisoners and pursued their cause because parole must never ever be politicised – it is an extremely serious matter that must be free from politics and pressure from the media.
No politician should be entertaining petitions from prisoners for parole.
The Parole Board must not be influenced or swayed in its decision making by the media or a politician who promote the self-serving interests of prisoners without any regard for the wider societal safety and wellbeing.
A prisoner does not have a right to parole.
There is no such thing as a human right to parole in any society in this world let alone our laws in PNG.
Parole is a rare privilege that can only be accorded to a “model prisoner” who is of “low risk” classification in the jail of abode by the respective jail classification committee and who does not pose any more risk to the community where he or she will serve the remainder of the sentence.
Parole cannot and must never be granted  willy nilly to any prisoner who applies for parole and then makes the loudest noise or cry in the media.
Under the Parole Act, the paramount consideration for grant or refusal of parole is the safety of the community.
The main question to ask is: if parole is granted to a prisoner, will the prisoner’s presence in the community add risk to the community and compromise safety or not?
Do not forget that we are dealing with convicted criminals who have committed serious crimes and were imprisoned by a competent court of law after trial, conviction and sentence.
The courts have fully considered the issue of risk and safety of the community and sentenced the prisoner to serve a custodial sentence so the Parole Board cannot and must never lightly disturb the court’s decision on sentence but only in those most deserving cases as recommended in the Pre-Parole Reports and Detainee Assessment Reports which are statutory reports which the Parole Board relies on to make its decisions.
When a prisoner serves one-third of a given sentence, the prisoner is only “eligible” for parole. The prisoner is not “entitled” to parole.
There are other considerations as stated in the Parole Act which must also be taken into consideration, such as risk to and safety of the community which must be taken into consideration in the parole decision making process by the Parole Board before Parole is granted or refused.
Parole must never be used as a “release valve” for allegedly “over-crowded prisons” as your correspondent and others elsewhere seems to suggest. Imagine the risk to the community if we did so!
Finally, it is crucial to point out again that parole consideration is a serious matter and the responsibility that we have as Parole Board is an onerous one.
Parole must never be politicised and no politician should be entertaining “petitions” for and on behalf of prisoners.
The Parole Board must never be influenced or swayed in its decision making process by the media or politicians or self-serving prisoners’ petitions.

Dr Lawrence Kalinoe OBE
Chairman, Parole Board