Update: Dr.Katrina Morrison and W.James Smith (Executive Committee Members) and Emma Jardine (Policy and Public Affairs Adviser) met with members of the Scottish Government’s Community Justice Division’s Parole Policy Team on 7 April 2025 to feed in our thoughts.

The Voices in Justice: Parole Reform Consultation was published on 20 August 2025. We will be responding to the consultation. With a closing date of 11 November 2025, there is still time for you to send us any views you may have: emma@howardleague.scot.

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The Scottish Government has announced a consultation on parole reform in Scotland which will be published in August 2025.
 
Ahead of the publication of the consultation we’re keen to canvass members’ views on the proposals relating to parole. What would you support or not support? Is there anything you would’ve liked to have seen in the Bill? We’d love to know what you think.
 
The Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill was introduced on 25 April 2023. It was designed to make a number of changes to legislation to try to improve the experience of victims and witnesses in the justice system and to make some broad reforms to the criminal justice process.
 
The broad reforms proposed included the removal of the not proven verdict; changes to the size of juries and the creation of new sexual offences courts.
 
The Scottish Parliament’s Criminal Justice Committee took evidence on the Bill at Stage 1 and published its report on 29 March 2024.
 
On 7 March 2025, at Stage 2 of the Bill, a number of amendments were lodged relating to victims’ rights in relation to the parole process.
 
These amendments included changes to victims’ involvement and interaction with the Parole Board for Scotland, and the manner in which decisions to release (or not to release) a prisoner are communicated. There were a number of amendments stipulating factors which the Parole Board for Scotland should take into account when making its decisions. These included whether or not the prisoner had shown remorse or withheld information about the whereabouts of a victim’s body.
 
This group of amendments (amongst others) was considered in a meeting of the Criminal Justice Committee on 19 March 2025.
 
During the meeting, the Cabinet Secretary acknowledged that parole had not featured in the Bill as introduced, and that legislation concerning the release of prisoners was currently covered by the Prisoner and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 and the Parole Board (Scotland) Rules 2022.  She agreed that change was required and announced a consultation on parole reform.
 
If you have comments or thoughts on this, please let us know by emailing emma@howardleague.scot.