Before Conducting Enquiries

General information about enquiries 

When making enquiries, the probation officer must:

• investigate and verify the information provided by the sentence planner in regarding any draft release proposals
• assess the suitability of the proposals
• formulate a final release proposal for the offender.

Verifying information

When investigating the offender’s release proposal, the probation officer should consider the following:

• Attempting to verify proposals through persons other than the offender, where possible.  If information cannot be verified, this should be noted in the parole assessment report.
• Gaining additional information from whanau or family on any matters potentially affecting the offender's reintegration.
• Obtaining and including information from others, such as employers or support people, who may be involved in the offender's reintegration. 
• If the information provided by the sentence planner cannot be confirmed or the probation officer considers the proposal unsuitable, then the probation officer must consider informing the sentence planner at the earliest opportunity to allow for alternatives to be proposed and investigated. 
• Release plans without a proposal from the offender should only be recommended in exceptional circumstances when there is no alternative.

Allocation 

CPPS will receive the draft parole assessment report from PS and allocate the report to a probation officer.

If possible, allocation should be to the probation officer who has completed the PRP worksheet and has been involved in any pre-parole liaison.

If RR is to be canvassed, the RR appendix should also be allocated to the same probation officer.

If there is an extended supervision (ES) order already in place this work should be allocated to the supervising probation officer.

File review 

Before conducting any enquiries the probation officer must complete a file review.

The following documents will provide background information on the offender and any previous release proposals:

• pre-release planning worksheet 
• pre-parole liaison notes (where pre-parole liaison has been initiated)
• draft PS parole assessment report, including all background information about the offender and their behaviour in prison
• any previous parole assessment reports
• IOMS offender records 
• previous pre-sentence reports
• previous psychological reports
• criminal history list 
• summary of facts
• judges sentencing notes.

Note: If the summary of facts and/or judges sentencing notes are not held by CPPS, the probation officer should request these from the sentence planner.