Prime Minister Andy Burnham has pledged to “end the injustice of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences this Parliament”. That would mean freeing the people still in prison on the sentences by 2029.
He made the pledge on 30 August. On the same day, ministers narrowed the early release scheme under the Sentencing Act. Critics warned that the change would add to overcrowding.
Four more groups lose their place in the scheme. They are people jailed for manslaughter, for indecent assault, for causing death by dangerous driving, or for causing or allowing a child’s death. Weeks earlier, ministers had already excluded people serving sentences for rape, child sex offences and grooming.
Taken together, the exclusions shrink the scheme. It was due to free up 6,000 places in prisons in England and Wales from September. It will now free up 4,500 places, starting in October.
Ministry of Justice position
In a press release, the Ministry of Justice said the IPP decision meant “people will no longer be trapped indefinitely under a sentence abolished more than a decade ago”.
The department said some offenders had spent nearly 20 years in prison despite serving their sentence many times over. By contrast, many people convicted of serious crimes recently could see their time in custody cut. Work would begin immediately and on a cross-party basis, it said. Getting it right would take time and must balance fairness with public safety.
Courts have not imposed IPP sentences since 2012. More than 2,200 men and women remain in prison on them. Justice Secretary Alex Norris was expected to make a statement in Parliament this week.
Reaction from campaigners and critics
Campaigners welcomed the pledge. Marc Conway, chief executive of the pressure group UNGRIPP, said: “This is a day that thousands of families have spent years fighting for”.
Andrea Coomber leads the Howard League for Penal Reform. She said: “Today’s announcement ought to be the beginning of the end of a terrible injustice that has ruined thousands of lives and brought great shame on our criminal justice system”. She added that the Sentencing Act changes announced so far would make the short-term capacity crisis harder to tackle.
Opponents noted that more than 800 IPP prisoners have never left custody. Each has had several Parole Board hearings, and each time the board judged them too dangerous to free. Former Conservative justice secretary Alex Chalk told BBC Radio 4 that released IPP prisoners would reoffend and return to prison.
Mr Burnham made his announcement on BBC Breakfast. He said he believed the public would rather see IPP prisoners freed than people serving fixed-term sentences for serious offences. He said: “Many of the people in this position have more than served their time”. A cross-party oversight group would look at how releases happen, he added, because some individuals still pose a risk.
Capacity pressures
Any IPP releases will come too late to ease the expected pressure on prison places this autumn. Forecasters had said prisons would fill up by November without the Sentencing Act releases.
The manslaughter exclusion followed political pressure on the Government. That pressure centred on two men convicted over the 2019 killing of Pc Andrew Harper in Buckinghamshire.
Under the Act, most fixed-term prisoners who would have left at the 40 per cent point will now leave at 33 per cent. Those due out at the 66 per cent point will leave at 50 per cent.
Releases will take place in 10 tranches from October. The first will be the largest, with some 700 prisoners expected to leave on a single day. Men’s prisons have around 1,600 spare places and are running at 98 per cent of capacity.
