ABSTRACT
The release of sentenced prisoners is of great significance, not only to the prisoners concerned but also for what it tells us about how society deals with those who have lost their liberty and are dependent on others to regain it. In practice, few prisoners are told that they will never be released from prison. All legal systems have rules, some more and some less formal, for deciding who comes out, when, and under what conditions. The application of these rules is closely watched by the prisoners themselves. However, as they are relatively powerless, it is of great importance that both the rules and wider principles that underlie them are clearly understood by criminal justice practitioners and the wider public. This book aims to contribute to such understanding by concentrating on the release of prisoners in countries of Europe, where, notwithstanding major procedural differences, there are fundamental shared values about liberty and the rule of law against which evolving systems can be critically evaluated.
