Violent criminal Adrian Pickett set to be released on parole from Tasmanian prison
Updated
A violent criminal considered too dangerous for minimum security is about to be freed from a Tasmanian jail.
The parole board has decided to release career criminal Adrian Pickett early from Risdon Prison, a move that is causing police concern.
Pickett, 37, is an armed robber who has had extra time added to his sentence for several crimes he has committed in jail.
He has never been approved for minimum security and has been repeatedly knocked back for the prison's re-integration program because guards think he is too dangerous to be allowed back into the community, even for a few hours.
Police Association president Pat Allen is concerned that the parole board has approved his early release in a few weeks.
"The parole board have a fairly nasty job to try and work out whether someone can be paroled or not," he said.
"Now we've known around the country that from time to time they've got it wrong - we just hope on this occasion they've got it right.
"We are very concerned about this case."
The parole board says it will not reveal its reasons for Pickett's release until after he is freed.
Pickett has been convicted of several violent and brazen crimes while in maximum security.
He was part of a prison van escape in 1998, and in 2006 arranged for a gun to be smuggled in by a prison guard as part of a thwarted breakout attempt.
Held in solitary for too long
He has occasionally made it out of maximum security into medium, but he has always been considered too dangerous to be in minimum security.
Lawyer Greg Barns acted for Pickett in a 2011 case in which Justice Helen Wood ruled that prison authorities had breached the Corrections Act by holding Pickett in maximum security, including solitary confinement, for too long.
"It is totally appropriate that Adrian be released and managed within a parole setting," he said.
"That's why you have parole, and that's what the community expects.
"And so to make mischief out of this particular case on the part of the Police Association is simply grossly unfair to Adrian Pickett, but further, it's not giving the community material facts about this particular case."
Topics: crime, crime-prevention, tas
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