133. Major reviews have also been undertaken of the present system of remission and parole. A system of parole was first introduced in Great Britain under the Criminal Justice Act 1967 as a means of ensuring the earlier release of prisoners who need not be detained. Prisoners became eligible for release on parole after serving one third of their sentences or 12 months, whichever was the longer, and parole boards were established to consider prisoners' suitability for release and to make recommendations to the Secretary of State accordingly. Criteria included the prospects for an offender's resettlement in the community and the likelihood that he would commit further offences.
134. The parole system does not operate in Northern Ireland, where the high proportion of terrorist-type offenders makes the element of supervision inherent in such a system impossible to apply. Until early 1989, all prison sentences in Northern Ireland attracted 50 per cent remission, but offenders released remained liable to be returned to prison to serve the unexpired portion of their sentence if they were subsequently convicted of further crime (see para. 170 below). In addition, in Northern Ireland there operates a system of unescorted pre-release home leave for prisoners serving sentences of six months or more.
135. Various changes were made in England and Wales in the period which followed the 1967 Act, including in 1983 a reduction in the minimum qualifying period from 12 months to 6, and the introduction of more restrictive criteria for the grant of parole for prisoners serving long sentences for serious offences. Restrictive criteria for the grant of parole for the latter were introduced in Scotland in 1984.
136. By 1987, it had become clear that serious anomalies had developed in the system and that it was no longer operating satisfactorily in a number of important respects. A committee was therefore established under the chairmanship of Lord Carlisle of Bucklow to examine the operation of the parole system in England and Wales, and the committee reported in November 1988. The report made a number of wide-ranging recommendations for improving the system, including changes both in the structure and in the decision-making process to make it more open. The Government is now considering these recommendations and will similarly announce its conclusions, and proposals for new legislation, later in the year. The Government is also considering the report of a committee established to consider the parole system in Scotland under the chairmanship of Lord Kincraig, which was published in March 1989.
137. Measures to reduce the prison population have not been confined to sentenced prisoners, and a number of initiatives, typically involving bail hostels and bail information schemes, have been taken to reduce the numbers sent to prison on remand. The remand population in England and Wales fell by about 1,000, or about 7.5 per cent, between September 1988 and August 1989.
138. Paragraphs 31-33 of the second periodic report described changes which had been made extending the right of prisoners to make complaints in their correspondence without having submitted those complaints to the prison authorities, particularly by the replacement of the so-called "prior ventilation rule" by the "simultaneous ventilation rule", and by the abolition of all such restrictions in the case of prisoners' correspondence with their legal advisers. As already noted above (para. 77), in England and Wales the