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Rights in Relation to the Release of Offenders
If you are the victim of a violent or sexual crime, where the sentence is one year or more, the Probation Service must offer you the opportunity to make representations about the conditions of release of the offender and be kept informed about these. The police should give you a leaflet entitled Release of prisoners: Information for Victims of Serious Sexual or other Violent Offences and pass your details to the National Probation Service unless you ask them not to (Home Office Circular 33/2001). The Probation Service should contact you within two months of such a conviction to ask whether you want to be kept informed or to make representations. You would not be invited to comment on whether a prisoner should be released but on the conditions under which release might take place.
This provision is not available to victims of mentally disordered offenders where an offender has been sent to special hospital rather than prison. However, it is anticipated that with the reform of the Mental Health Act 1983, there will eventually be greater parity between the rights of victims of offenders sent to prison and victims of mentally disordered offenders sent to hospital.
In relation to the Human Rights Act, the right to respect for private and family life applies to both victims and their families and to offenders and their families. The case of R (on the application of Craven) v i. Secretary of State for the Home Department and The Parole Board [2001] looks at balancing the rights of the victim against those of the offender in relation to conditions which the Parole Board may attach to a licence when an offender is released. The judgement supports a victim’s right to request that conditions are placed on an offender despite restricting an offender’s freedom of movement.
This provision is not available to victims of mentally disordered offenders where an offender has been sent to special hospital rather than prison. However, it is anticipated that with the reform of the Mental Health Act 1983, there will eventually be greater parity between the rights of victims of offenders sent to prison and victims of mentally disordered offenders sent to hospital.
In relation to the Human Rights Act, the right to respect for private and family life applies to both victims and their families and to offenders and their families. The case of R (on the application of Craven) v i. Secretary of State for the Home Department and The Parole Board [2001] looks at balancing the rights of the victim against those of the offender in relation to conditions which the Parole Board may attach to a licence when an offender is released. The judgement supports a victim’s right to request that conditions are placed on an offender despite restricting an offender’s freedom of movement.
