The UK Ministry of Justice recently announced its plans to enact crucial alterations to Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences. These sentences were originally designed to keep offenders, who are seen as potentially dangerous, behind bars even when their actions did not necessitate a life sentence. The usage of IPP sentences was ceased in 2012 but, shockingly, many offenders still bear the burden of these sentences, essentially keeping them in jail indefinitely or under the impending threat of recall.
According to the proposal advocated by the Ministry of Justice, IPP offenders who are currently carrying out community sentences would be put up for license review by the Parole Board three years after their initial release. If the review does not result in the termination of their sentence, it will automatically end two years later, unless the offender is recalled to prison. The guidelines for the Parole Board propose operating under the presumption that licenses should be terminated unless there is a clear requirement to safeguard the public. Under the current state of affairs, the minimum waiting time for a Parole Board review for IPP offenders is ten years, and sentences are indefinite.
This new measure will immediately impact over 1,800 offenders living safely within the community as well as those who have not been sent to prison or a secure hospital during their IPP sentence. This group of individuals was overlooked when the IPP policy was abolished in 2012 because the abolition did not apply retrospectively. Referring to this predicament, Lord Brown described the IPP system as “[T]he greatest single stain on the justice system… a deeper, growing stain because of the situation with the recalls.”
The Guardian reported an alarming rise in the rate at which offenders are recalled to prison. Further, a 2022 Report highlighted that offenders are recalled, not for committing new criminal offenses, but for either missing or being late for appointments, or due to a lack of community resources. These circumstances have led to a wave of controversy surrounding IPP sentences, and the Justice Select Committee made an unheeded call last year for the resentencing of all IPP prisoners.
Data provided by UNGRIPP, a campaign group for IPP reform, revealed that as of March, 2,916 individuals were detained under the IPP recall with 1,327 being unreleased, surpassing their tariff and 1,561 on recall. Tuesday’s proposed alterations have been widely accepted as a step in the right direction, but critics including the Independent assert that there is still a long road ahead, especially in the wake of their report that seven inmates took their own lives since the government’s initial refusal to resentence IPP prisoners in February. These tragic instances have not been addressed in the new proposals.