This paper presents the key findings from the Australian Research Council project, Parole in crisis? Public perceptions of parole and Parole Board decision-making (the Australian Parole Project). The project involved quantitative telephone interviews about attitudes to parole with 1200 Australians, qualitative interviews on parole ‘vignettes’ and parole decision-making with a subset of these members of the public (n=30) and in-depth interviews with 80 Parole Board members in every jurisdiction across Australia, as well as New Zealand, Canada and Scotland. To date, the project has yielded five refereed articles and three summary pieces, with further papers and a book in preparation.