Conditional release in Catalonia (Executive report)

Abstract

In 2012, the Catalan Prison Service and the Centre for Legal Studies and Specialized Training (CEJFE) identified the need of studying in depth the application of conditional release (CR) in Catalonia. The aim is to find out how CR is being currently managed and to describe the best way of extending its application to all the prisoners who meet the objective and subjective conditions provided for the Spanish legal framework. The aim of extending the application of conditional release in Catalonia is based on two motives: on one hand –taking into account international recommendations and the results of empirical research– to encourage the possibilities for rehabilitation provided by the prison sentence, promoting the prisoner’s reintegration into society through a period of supervision in the community. And on the other hand, to reduce the high cost of imprisonment if it is not necessary, even more in times of economical crisis. In this research, we will explain the arguments that are set out for the promotion of conditional release, grouped in 3 parts: 1) arguments related to penal and penitentiary policy, 2) economic arguments, and 3) arguments related to criminological efficacy. The methodology of the study is based on triangulating the information to compare what was expected (theoretical base, laws, previous studies), what has been observed (quantitative and qualitative results of the research) and what has been explained (experts’ arguments, opinions of professionals working in the field). Therefore, the methodology combines quantitative and qualitative techniques and analyses which are adjusted as far as possible to the aims pursued at each moment. All the research long, we give results and conclusions concerning the prisoners’ profile and their classification, the delays in the concession of inmate’s privileges (permissions for living the prison, open regime, etc.), and the Prison Service difficulties or troubles (such prison transfers of inmates, excess of bureaucracy, bad management of the Individualised Treatment Programme (ITP), difficulties in the satisfaction of the civil liability, lack of treatment programmes in open custody, etc.) Finally, the research specifies 23 proposals for extending the application of CR in Catalonia, set out in 6 areas focused on the following aims: A) To strengthen the rehabilitating character of conditional release; B) To implement a mixed model in the application of conditional release; C) To graduate the answers to no-compliances of the CR conditions; D) To improve the drafting and application of the ITP; E) To promote changes in some habits of work of the professionals implied; and F) To promote a change in the social perception of conditional release.