Criminal Law - All you need to know about Parole

Introduction

Forms of punishments have evolved a lot. Really a lot. Earlier, in middle ages,retributive punishment was a norm. We had blood code in Europe, we had harsh punishments in India under Islamic law. With development, so did the methods of punishment changed. Now more importance is given to reformative and correctional method. Today prisoners of crime are treated as Human being and not as an animal which was the case earlier.

These reformative and correctional method have produced a great deal of results. If you ask yourself a question "Which countries have lowest crime rates ?", obvious answer is Nordic countries (Sweden,Norway etc). These countries have been employing these kind of punishment, and it had produces a great result.

Parole is one of the correctional method. What does this really mean ?

Meaning of Parole

Oxford dictionary defines it as 
the temporary or permanent release of a prisoner before the expiry of a sentence, on the promise of good behaviour.
 It mean "word of honor" or trust. Prisoner is released before termination of his sentence.

It was the concept in Military, wherein prisoners of war were released on promise of return. This idea was brought into the mainstream and applied to normal prisoners as well.

Criminologist like J.L Gillin, Donald Tuft tried to define parole, which is more or less similar to the definition of Dictionary.

Parole is planned release and community supervision of incarcerated before expiration of their sentence. It's release for special purpose, on the promise of good behavior.

Purpose

It serves many purpose. Below are some of them
  • It brings about rehabilitation of the offender.
  • It gives opportunity to convicted people. Remember, everybody deserves second chance!
  • It also saves money.Yes. Government will have to spend less money as there would be less people in prison
  • Family of offender also get some kind of relief. For example, offender is sole bread earner, then after his imprisonment family have to suffer financially.

Legal Provision

State wise laws are compiled by Bureau of Police Research Development here.http://www.bprd.nic.in/content/3534_1_Compilation.aspx

How this whole system works ?

Parole is granted by Government and not by courts. Remember it's prerogative of executive. Courts normally never interfere.
 This whole parole thing have 3 agencies. First is Parole Board, the case investigator and Parole supervisors.

Parole board consist of people from society. It would typically consist of prison officers, other members from society. They prepare case history of parolees. 

Another agency  is parole supervisor. They chase parolees, not literally!. They keep an eye on a offender who is on parole. They checkout if offender is violating any conditions about parole..

Third is case investigator who investigate and present a report to Parole board. After careful examination of report, parole board take a call whether to grant a release or not.

Rules and above structure differs based on states.

Grounds on which parole can be granted.

On below grounds parole can be granted

  • Serious Illness of a family member.
  • Accident or Death of a family member.
  • Marriage of a member of the family.
  • Delivery of Child by wife of the convict.
  • Serious damage to life or property of the family of convict by natural calamities.

Relevant Court Rulings


 In Dadu Vs State of Maharashtra AIR 2003 SC 2303, supreme court observed that:

Paroles are usually granted to convicts to enable them to fulfill their social and family obligation and normally do not extend by a month at a time. During exceptional circumstance, it could increase to 3 months.
 In one of the case it was held that it's not suspension of sentence. Convict would continue to serve the sentence despite granting the parole.

In Haris Singh V State of Haryana, It was held that denial of parole on flimsy ground was unjustified.

In Dharamvir V State of Uttar Pradesh, court held that parole for long term prisoner should be granted for continuity of social life.

 How successful is parole in India.

Not much it seems. It was found that very few offenders avail this. Reason for failures are as below

  • The process is cumbersome. So many permission needed. Then there is additional burden of parole board, investigation etc.
  • There is little knowledge about this correctional method among offenders.
  • Many a time funny things happen. If person apply for parole on marriage of his son of 15th January, due to slowness of entire process, he gets result on 17th January. What is the purpose?
  • There is fear of society too. Many a time offender just ignore this out of fear of shame from society.

Conclusion

Despite the flaws, this could be very useful in reforming prisoner, giving relief from continuous jail drudgery. To appreciate such system remember what Oscar Wilde remarked.
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.


Legalfundaa



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