Most jurisdictions use parole, which allows certain offenders to serve a portion of their sentence in the community, supervised and subject to certain conditions. Two primary forms of parole exist: mandatory and discretionary. Policy documents offer parole decision makers guidance on how to reach their decisions. A recent review highlighted that offenders with more extensive criminal histories or more serious institutional misbehaviour were less frequently granted discretionary parole, and when granted release, it was typically after having served a greater proportion of their sentence. Psychologists use a number of approaches in assessing risk, including unstructured clinical judgement and actuarial instruments, which make predictions of the likelihood of the offender engaging in a certain behaviour based on patterns previously found in similar groups. Given that the incorporation of results from actuarial instruments generally increases accuracy, parole decision makers would be best served by psychological reports which emphasize and address actuarial results.