For the purposes of this chapter, these definitions apply:

(1) "Board" means the Board of Pardons and Parole as authorized in 2-15-2302, MCA, the board staff and the board's duly constituted hearing panels.

(2) "Chair" means the person appointed by the governor to serve as the presiding officer of the board.

(3) "Controlling sentence" means the sentence(s) that, based on a district court judgment, requires the longest period of time served to parole eligibility.

(4) "Dead time" means the time an offender is not serving his/her sentence of incarceration either because the offender has absconded or is serving another sentence of incarceration.

(5) "Department" means the Department of Corrections as authorized in 2-15-230, MCA.

(6) "Furlough" means temporary absence from confinement for the purposes authorized by the board.

(7) "Hearing" means the personal appearance of an offender before the board for release consideration, executive clemency, or revocation.

(8) "Hearing panel" means two or three board members assigned by the chair to hear and decide cases of parole, revocation, rescission, administrative review, and clemency.

(9) "Offender" means any person sentenced by a state district court to a term of confinement in a state correctional institution or committed to the department.

(10) "Parole" means the release of an offender into the community prior to the completion of sentence subject to the orders of the board and the supervision of the department.

(11) "Parolee" means a person whom the board has granted parole, who has signed the rules of parole and been given a parole certificate, and whose parole has not been revoked.

(12) "Parole certificate" means the document signed by the board chairman and executive director authorizing the release from confinement to parole.

(13) "Parole eligibility" means the earliest possible date an offender may be released from confinement to parole supervision.

(14) "Prior conviction" means a sentence which the offender has completed.

(15) "Rescission" means an action of the board that annuls or voids a prior release decision.

(16) "Review" means the informal administrative process of considering the conduct and progress of an offender to determine if a reappearance or parole is desirable.

(17) "Rules" means the conditions, limitations, and restrictions upon which parole or furlough is based.

(18) "Sentence" means the penalty imposed by a court for a specific criminal offense.

(19) "Term" means the total period of time, minus applicable good time, that an offender was ordered to serve in prison or committed to the Department of Corrections or the Department of Public Health and Human Services for the commission of a criminal offense.

(20) "Victim" means a person who has suffered loss of property, bodily injury, or reasonable apprehension of bodily injury as a result of the commission of a criminal offense or a member of the immediate family of a person who was killed as a result of a crime.