Parole board backlog: Two jails worth of prisoners awaiting parole decisions
The state is grappling with a backlog of 4000 parole cases, with taxpayers footing the bill as applicants languish behind bars.
Police & Courts
Don't miss out on the headlines from Police & Courts. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Two jails’ worth of prisoners are awaiting parole decisions – costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars a day – as the state’s underfunded parole board is sinking under the heaviest workload in its history.
The Courier-Mail can reveal the Queensland Parole Board has a backlog of 4000 parole cases, including 2200 applications and more than 2000 suspensions.
It has also had to deal with hundreds of Covid-19 exemption parole requests, mostly made with blank applications from prisoners who were not eligible.
In a rare interview, the board’s president Michael Byrne QC said the situation was only going to get worse and that three permanent teams making decisions needed to be expanded to at least five.
As a result of the backlog, taxpayers are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a day to keep prisoners inside jails who could be released, as historically the board accepts 60 per cent of first applications.
Deputy president Peter Shields said a Productivity Commission report in 2018 found the average cost per day per prisoner was $305, compared to supervising someone on parole being about $17.
“You can’t go ‘you are sitting on 50 matters, now we’re going to up it to 100 matters’,” he said of the backlog.
Since the board was overhauled in 2017, there had been a 14 per cent increase in parole applications and a 32 per cent increase in requests for immediate suspensions of parole.
“That’s only going to get worse with new police numbers and a crackdown on crime,” Mr Byrne said.
“For the last financial year the board considered in excess of 18,000 matters and that was in the course of over 400 meetings of the board. We’re not sitting on our hands here.
“Everyone can see we are under-resourced and it’s not possible for us to sit on the number of matters that are coming in. So the backlog is just going to be increasing.”
Mr Shields said the parole board was considering 3500 to 5000 pages a week.
“We read everything,” he said.
“That’s why no one is criticising our decision making, it’s just a matter of having more decision makers so more decisions can be made.”
As a result of the backlog, prisoners with legal representation are applying for judicial review in the courts to try to get released sooner. In the last financial year the board dealt with 325 applications, more than 90 per cent were because the board had failed to make a decision within the statutory time frame. The previous year there were just 10.
The board has set up protocols with the courts and prisoners to explain and work through the backlogs, including indications of when matters will be considered.
The interview with the board follows Supreme Court Justice Thomas Bradley describing the board’s functioning as “Kafkaesque” after it was revealed people applying for parole with an eligibility date in May were being told their matters would not be heard until January.
He said he would “like to see any member of the board placed in custody for six or seven months”.
In response, Mr Byrne said: “It was, to use a neutral term, unhelpful, for a supreme court judge to say some of us should be jailed for six months or (the board is) borderline delinquent. He’s entitled to his opinion of course.”
There were regular meetings with the Chief Justice among other legal figures to explain the situation, Mr Byrne said.
He said there was also a misconception people were being breached for drinking or missing a meeting.
Prominent lawyers Bill Potts and Sisters Inside CEO Debbie Kilroy have called for further board funding and said 1000 prisoners – the size of a jail – could be released almost immediately.
Mr Shields said: “A team can deal with on average about 1000 new applications a year. So that’s (the equivalent) of Borallon (jail).”
Mr Byrne said the government had been receptive to the board’s submissions about needing further resources.
A temporary team has been set up – raising the number of teams making decisions from three to four – while accounting firm KPMG conducts a review of the board.
“The preliminary advice we’ve seen from KPMG, if the board did nothing else, if applications stopped coming in, it’d take us over a year to clean up the backlog at the current rate of disposal,” Mr Byrne said.
Parole board teams have between three and five members. Each team comprises a president or a deputy, a professional member (a lawyer), a police inspector, community corrections member as well as a community member.
They said any recommendation to reduce team numbers for more serious board matters such as those for domestic violence should never happen. The board is also pushing to be independently funded, as it is currently dependent on Queensland Corrective Services.
The Government is awaiting the KPMG report before making any decision.
INFAMOUS PAROLE CANDIDATES
The parole board said it took considerable time and read up to 5000 pages a week to make decisions to protect the Queensland community. Eligibility does not mean parole will be granted.
High-profile cases before the board include:
Robert Paul Long
Childers backpacker murderer Robert Paul Long applied for parole when he became eligible, 20 years after the tragedy. Parole was refused this year, meaning he has to wait until next year to apply again.
Barrie Watts
The State Government is taking steps to keep child killers behind bars indefinitely but Watts, who abducted, raped, tortured and murdered 12-year-old Sunshine Coast schoolgirl Sian Kingi in 1987 has a current application before the parole board.
Without the proposed changes to the law, Watts would be able to apply every year.
Colin David Randall
Randall, a former police officer, has applied for parole after serving a sentence for the manslaughter of his 10-week old baby Kye. Randall punched Kye so hard, he “pulverised” the baby boy’s liver.
ICED OUT: Why cocaine is new king of meth-scarred cities
Meth’s decade-long reign of Queensland’s drug scene is over as experts warn white powder power is rising in its place. MAPPED HOTSPOTS, DRUG CRIMS NAMED
Man shot after fight south of Brisbane
A man was rushed to hospital with a gunshot wound after being given first aid by police following an alleged fight with another man south of Brisbane.