In September 2008 the Governor of Pennsylvania, USA, imposed a moratorium on all parole (early conditional) releases from the state prisons, which lasted until March 2009. As a political measure, the moratorium was triggered by a series of violent incidents involving recently released parolees culminating with the killings of several police officers. This paper documents the impact of the moratorium on the parole and correctional processes in the state and discusses its implications for the legitimacy of the two justice agencies affected, the Board of Parole and the Department of Corrections. The paper also describes the research undertaking of the team tasked with conducting the comprehensive review of parole and corrections at the Governor’s request, which circumscribed the lifting of the moratorium on the results of the investigation. In addition to qualitative data, the study employed quantitative methods to investigate through predictive analyses both parole decisions and parolee performance upon release. The challenges of conducting action research in the “spotlight” are also highlighted. The nature of the study and its setting in a large state in the United States should provide a useful illustration of problems and potential approaches to dealing with them that similar crime prevention tasks may face in other jurisdictions around the world relying on conditional release as a means of prison release.