Probation
Being taken back to prison
You can be taken straight back to prison if you have been released on licence or parole and you break the rules of your probation. This is known as a ‘recall’. Your offender manager will tell you why you’ve been recalled.
There are three types of recalls.
Fixed-term recalls
You’ll be sent back to prison for either:
- 14 days - if your original sentence was less than 12 months
- 28 days - if your original sentence was 12 months or more
When you’re released you’ll be back on probation and licence until the end of your sentence.
Standard recalls
You’ll go back to prison until the end of your sentence, unless a parole board or the Secretary of State for Justice decide to release you.
Your case will be sent to a parole board automatically after 28 days. They will either release you straight away or set a date (within 1 year) when you can be released on licence.
Your offender manager can also review your case at any time and recommend to the Secretary of State that you should be released.
Indeterminate sentence recalls
Your case will be sent to a parole board either:
- 28 days after you go back to prison
- within 12 months of your last parole board review
The parole board will do one of the following:
- release you on licence immediately
- set a date when you’ll be released on licence
- keep you in prison
- ask you to attend a hearing
- delay making a decision about your sentence until they have more information