PRT response to Chief Inspectors’ report on IPP prisoners
In response to the publication of the Chief Inspectors of Prisons and Probation thematic report on IPP prisoners (The indeterminate sentence for public protection), Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said:
“This report lays bare the scale of the damage done by IPPs.
“IPP’s are a text book example of the dangers of chasing headlines by acting tough, not smart. As our report last year first highlighted, the sentence was unnecessary and proved to be unworkable, overfilling prisons and leaving prison staff to try to make sense of the mess.”
Since April 2005 this ferocious runaway sentence has netted over 5,000 people and accounts for around 6% of today’s prison population. Already by April this year, more than 750 people were being held beyond the tariff set by the courts. That number is expected to be approaching 1000 by now. Despite some changes in this year’s Criminal Justice Act, it is likely that many of these prisoners who have served their minimum tariff but remain in prison do so because they have had no opportunity to demonstrate they pose no risk if released.
Despite concerns recognised by parliament’s joint committee on human rights earlier this year, even where offending behaviour courses are available, many people with low literacy levels, with learning difficulties and most people with learning disabilities are barred from entry.
Ministers cannot abandon these people in a maze with no exit and must act quickly and decisively to put things right and prevent more costly legal challenges. The Prison Reform Trust will today be writing to the prisons minister and asking as a matter of urgency what the Ministry of Justice plans to do about prisoners caught in this trap.
The Government has penciled in a bill for the next parliamentary session to establish a sentencing commission. The IPP fiasco has shown that ministers sometimes need help to protect themselves from making bad decisions for populist reasons. A sentencing commission, similar to that established in New Zealand, could avert such disasters by providing an ‘impact assessment’ of new laws to improve policy-making and helping the government better plan its use of criminal justice resources. It’s time to take the political sting out and introduce some sense into sentencing policy.”
Notes
For more information see the Prison Reform Trust briefing on IPP sentences.
In July 2008 the Prison Reform Trust published a report recommending the establishment of a sentencing commission serving three main functions:
- Providing guidance to sentencers;
- Gathering and providing information and statistics for monitoring, planning and policy development; and
- Community engagement – to inform and consult with the public.
