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Unprecedented access opens the door often publicly criticized, but few understand the working of the Parole board

A Parole Board hearing starts early and with little fanfare. There are no grand, oak-lined courtrooms or spacious chambers. Instead, in a cramped room in the bowels of a modern, unprepossessing building just beyond the shadow of parliament, panel members grab paper cups of powdered coffee and converse about the comparative quality of the beverages served in prisons. Then, firmly shutting the door on the outside world, the panel squeeze around a table dominated by teetering piles of prison, probation and psychiatric reports and victim statements, and begin their work.

The Parole Board is the court that decides whether to let paedophiles, murderers and other dangerous offenders back into the community. Press and public opprobrium over early release of notorious prisoners is reflected by members. "These could be life or death decisions we're making," one said. While agonising whether to free a man who kidnapped a woman, drove her to a wood and shot her in the legs, she added: "We are potentially letting people out who could go on to commit some terrible act or keeping someone in custody when they're safe to release."

The board is at the heart of the criminal justice system. Its remit in the most high-profile cases where sentence is indeterminate is to judge at oral hearings, usually held in jails, on a single point: whether prisoners guilty of the most serious offences involving sex and violence still pose a risk to society to justify imprisonment after the expiration of their tariff - the minimum time the trial judge ruled they must serve. For determinate, or fixed term, prisoners, the "hearings" are on paper.

The Guardian gained a week of unprecedented access to the board. We were allowed to sit in on panels' deliberations and read their reports. Acutely sensitive to public reaction to their role in releasing criminals, few members were willing to be identified, although they voiced their opinions freely.

'Ultimately imponderable'

"Each case is like a detective investigation â€" but done the wrong way round," said one member. "We have to predict the risk of a crime taking place if we release someone. The truth is that that risk is not something we can calculate accurately - which means we're assessing life and death risks that are ultimately imponderable.

\\ "Another truth is that we sometimes get it wrong: there will always be the proportion of offenders, we are releasing that will reoffend. The only safe solution is not to release anyone, except in this case, you may also have early conditional Free Board at all. "

In a normal day of "paper hearings" panels of up to three members will hear cases that are gruesome, baffling, or in which miscarriages of justice seem to have taken place. For example, the 50-year-old mother given a five-year sentence for cruelty towards a person under 16 after she failed to stop her husband sexually abusing her daughter.

It was, said one member, a breathtakingly severe sentence. "This poor woman must have met an unsympathetic judge on a bad day," he said. "She had been utterly under the control of her violent husband but had not taken any part in the abuse herself."

The rarity of the sentence leaves the panel powerless to release her. "Because it is so unusual for a woman to be imprisoned for this crime, there are no prison courses that exist to help her address what the judge said was her offending behaviour," the member said.

"Now it's difficult for us to release her because she hasn't shown she no longer presents the risk the judge found her guilty of. She should have appealed at the time of sentence but people sometimes don't get the right legal advice. All we can do is refer the case back to her case worker with our guidance and advice, and hope that her appeal will be successful next time."

Matthew said that, with accommodation, he would have "reasonable faith" this man could be managed in the community. "Without it, he will become stressed again and his risk to society will increase," he said. "Prison is often the wrong place for people in terms of their support needs but once they're there, the risk of them reoffending is too high to let them out."

All term prisoners convicted of crimes related to sex and violence, as well as those serving life or indeterminate sentences should board 's blessing before they can be released. Such decisions are rarely simple, with members often struggle with their responsibilities.

"I keep find myself swinging one way, then the other," said one member considering the release of a 26-year-old man who held up a garage with a machete, cosh and chainsaw. "I started by thinking we should release him but now my instincts are saying not to."

Despite their desire to be liberal and pro-release, Matthew said the statistics prove that panel members unconsciously reflect increasingly risk-adverse public attitudes. He wishes he had more powers. "If we were able to consider the long-term risk for determinate sentence prisoners and not just the parole window during which they would otherwise be detained, our decisions might from time to time be different," he said.

The board has substantial powers. Members can, for example, refuse to release someone on the basis of evidence discounted by the trial judge or of crimes for which the offender was acquitted. Information that would be inadmissible in court â€" such as hearsay â€" is often key to a panel's decision.

"We can and do take any and every evidence that presents itself into account when we assess the risk presented by an offender," said Terry McCarthy, head of casework at the board and administrator for the panel that released Jon Venables on lifelong licence in June 2001. "That someone is acquitted of a crime doesn't mean that we ignore it because we're not looking at whether they have committed an offence beyond reasonable doubt but whether their behaviour suggests risk - of any offence at all."

It is with sex offenders that panels admit their hardest work is done. The appeal for parole, for example, from the 77-year-old in a wheelchair with a 40-year history of incest â€" the last instance being shortly before conviction, when he was 71.

Unremitting misery

When the table is finally clear of reports, the panel sag in their Formica chairs, drained by the airless room and the unremitting misery of the lives they have spent their day delving into.

"I find it more demoralising than I had expected because of the few people that we are able to release," said one member. "I joined the Parole Board with the belief that people can change. But they don't. Prison rarely helps offenders. More often than not, it seems to make them worse. They offend and offend again, and we as Parole Board members become more and more cautious about releasing them.

"The problem is that if we release someone and something goes wrong â€" if an offender we release kills someone â€" the buck stops with us. It was our decision. It was our call," she said. "Having said that …" she added, standing up and putting on her coat, " I have never enjoyed my work more."

What does the Parole Board do?

Established in 1968, the Parole Board is an independent body that makes risk assessments about whether prisoners serving specific and indeterminate sentences may safely be released.

Uncertainty of supply cover prisoners serving life sentences, and how persons deprived of liberty to protect the population.

Determinate sentences include discretionary conditional release prisoners serving more than 4 years whose offence was committed before 4 April 2005 and prisoners given extended sentences for public protection for offences which were committed on or after 4 April 2005.

Council also decided, Justice Minister was acquitted, remembering prisoners accused of violating their license condition - the rules they must follow after the liberation - and whether they would be safe to re-release, if they were withdrawn.