HL Deb 11 December 1980 vol 415 c863WA
Lord Avebury

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they will place in the Library copies of the prison red-edged form headed "Reception—Exceptional Risk", and of the form F 1150, showing, in the case of the latter form, how prisoners considered to be exceptional risks are identified; how they classify prisoners in this way, and whether they take into account the view expressed in the paper "Dangerous Offenders in Prison" in Home Office Research Study No. 64, that "dangerousness, as ordinary experience will confirm, is an unpredictable phenomenon"; and what effect this classification has on the prisoner's treatment and his eligibility for parole.

Lord Belstead

A copy of the police form 618 "Prisoner—Exceptional Risk" appears as Appendix XIII of the Home Office Consolidated Circular on Crime and Kindred Matters which is already in the Library. A copy of prison form F 1150, including the pages most commonly used for sentenced prisoners, has also been placed in the Library. Details from the exceptional risk form are entered on page 24 and the two documents are placed immediately after page 1. The criteria for suspecting that a prisoner presents an exceptional risk are wider than the concepts of dangerousness discussed in Home Office Research Study No. 64. Nevertheless, even if subsequent events show that a suspicion of risk is well-founded, this is only one of many factors taken into account in considering classification, treatment and eligibility for parole.