22 Feb New first-of-its-kind report presents pathway to ending UK prisons crisis
Today, a new first-of-its-kind report by UK charity, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS), has been published with a landmark strategy to resolve a 21-year state miscarriage of justice in UK prisons: Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP).
Now recognised as infamous, IPP sentences were a form of indefinite prison sentence, described subsequently as the “single greatest stain” on the UK’s criminal justice system [1]. However, nearly 3,000 prisoners, many of whom are very low-level offenders, remain behind bars in prisons today. The reason is that, despite this controversial sentence being ‘abolished’ in 2012 following widespread concern over its implementation and psychological impact on inmates, this decision was non-retrospective and did not apply to those already in prison.
The new report – ‘How to resolve the IPP crisis for good’ – presents a five-point plan for resolving the tragedy once and for all, and comes as momentum is building around proposed IPP amendments to the Victims & Prisoners Bill, currently making its way through the House of Lords.
The report presents clear measures designed to protect the most despairing prisoners, reduce numbers of IPPs unnecessarily filling prisons, and prevent future similar crises. It calls on the UK Government to:
Release the most distressed prisoners on compassionate grounds.
Launch a recovery and reparations programme alongside expanded mental health and social support.
Ease restrictions for over tariff IPP prisoners.
Commit to review all forms of preventative detention.
Complete a review of resentencing for all IPPs, effective immediately.
The CCJS emphasises that this plan could not only resolve a national scandal – which has destroyed the lives of thousands; unnecessarily filled prisons; cost taxpayers billions, and breached British values and standards of law – but also make a crucial step on a pathway to ending the UK prison capacity crisis.
With almost 3,000 IPPs in prison today – equivalent to four average-sized UK prisons – expediting the release of over-tariff and distressed prisoners will have a large and immediate impact on reducing pressure on UK prisons, currently at 98% capacity according to latest official figures, and reportedly set to run out of spaces by spring 2024 [2]. Ambitious IPP reforms should also prevent alternative expensive and contentious proposals to ease capacity pressures, such as renting prison places for UK prisoners overseas, as far away as Estonia [3].
Improving conditions and mental health support, also recommended in the report, would be expected to slow the rate of self-harm and suicide among IPPs. According to IPP campaign organisation, UNGRIPP, 90 people given IPPs have committed suicide in prison between 2005 and the end of 2023, with the total number feared much higher due to the difficulty of recording deaths of IPPs on licence in the community [4]. With a reported 19 in just the past two years (over 20% of the all-time total reported), this number is accelerating fast [5].
The report also comprises a comprehensive analysis of reforms made by successive UK governments, judging these as piecemeal, unambitious, and ineffective, including the Government’s ‘misnamed and underpowered’ IPP Action Plan, released in April 2023. Furthermore, it argues that recent Government-proposed changes to IPP licence periods – bringing automatic licence termination down from ten years to five years following release – will not solve the crisis, due to the high proportion of recalls occurring within the first five years. Licence period changes also do nothing to expedite the release of the 2,852 IPP prisoners currently behind bars, 1,227 of whom have never been released.
Additional analysis in the report, based on a prior collaboration with data analysis consultancy, Justice Episteme, projects future IPP populations. Based on long-term trends, the analysis shows that over 1,000 IPP prisoners will still be in prison in 2030. At this point, it will be 18 years since these prisoners’ sentence was ‘abolished’.
Justice Secretary, Alex Chalk, is coming under increasing pressure to look at IPP ‘resentencing options’ as the House of Lords is set to debate a series of amendments to the Victims & Prisoners Bill on 12 March 2024, including an amendment, proposed by Baroness Fox of Buckley, which would commit the Government to resentencing IPPs.
Richard Garside, Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, commented: “This really is a scandalous situation. The current IPP ‘Action Plan’ remains tied to an outdated and discredited approach to IPP. Something has to change, otherwise we will be sat here again, in another 12 years’ time since these ‘indefinite’ sentences were abolished, with this deadly crisis still going. After 21 years, at least 90 lives lost, and hundreds of families broken, surely it is time for the Government to grasp the nettle and take decisive action. I urge the Government to adopt our recommendations without delay, to end the political inertia that has allowed this stain on the British justice system to persist for over 20 years.”
