The IPP Sentence: A Continuing Injustice
What Is the IPP Sentence?
The Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection (IPP) was introduced in 2005 as part of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. It was designed for people considered to pose a “significant risk of serious harm” to the public, even when their crimes were not serious enough for a life sentence.
Under an IPP, the judge set a minimum term tariff, the time a person must serve as punishment. After that, release was not automatic. A person could only leave prison if the Parole Board decided they were no longer a risk. There was no release date, and many people remained in prison years or even decades beyond their tariff.
This meant that people who had committed minor offences such as fighting, theft, or damage to property were effectively serving life sentences without knowing when or if they would ever be free.
Read articles below for more information:
https://prisonreformtrust.org.uk/project/imprisonment-for-public-protection-ipp/
https://howardleague.org/what-are-ipp-sentences/
https://ccrc.gov.uk/ipp-sentences/
Why Were IPP Sentences Controversial
https://howardleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/never-ending-story-IPP.pdf
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/ipp-type-sentence-not-type-person
Why Were IPP Sentences Abolished
The IPP quickly became one of the most widely criticised sentences in modern British law. It was abolished in 2012 under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (LASPO) after the government and senior judges accepted that the sentence was unjust, unworkable, and inhumane.
Key reasons for abolition included:
Disproportionate punishment people serving decades beyond short tariffs for minor crimes.
Systemic failure prisoners could not access the courses or programmes needed to prove their safety for release
Severe mental health harm self-harm and suicide rates among IPP prisoners were, and remain, shockingly high.
Unmanageable complexity the Parole Board and prison system were overwhelmed by impossible risk assessments and indefinite detentions.
But abolition was not made retrospective. This meant that thousands of people already serving IPPs were left behind. As of today, many still remain in prison years after completing their tariff. Others live under indefinite licence, facing recall to custody at any time for minor breaches sometimes for missing an appointment or struggling with mental health after release.
Read Articles below for more information:
https://gcnchambers.co.uk/echr-rules-ipp-sentences-breach-human-rights-art-51/
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/sep/18/prisoners-indeterminate-sentences-ipps
The Injustice
The IPP sentence has been condemned by the Justice Select Committee, the European Court of Human Rights, and countless campaigners as a “stain on British justice.”
At its core, the IPP is built on a fiction of risk punishing people not for what they have done, but for what they might do in the future. This approach undermines the principles of justice, proportionality, and rehabilitation.
Read article below for more details:
The human cost has been devastating:
Death and indefinite psychological mental torture:
People held indefinitely without knowing when they will be released.
It has claimed over 94 lives in custody through mental torture that led to preventable suicides, and has claimed up to 37 IPPs in the community on licence, through preventable suicides. And have claimed up to 300 IPP prisoners through natural related deaths.
Families living for years in uncertainty and fear.
A generation of people psychologically damaged by hopelessness and neglect.
Even now, more than a decade after its abolition, the IPP continues to destroy lives. Justice demands more than words it requires resentencing, release, and recognition of the harm this sentence has caused.
The Call for Change
We join survivors, families, and campaigners across the country in calling for:
Full resentencing for all remaining IPP prisoners.
Support and stability for those released under licence.
Accountability for a system that has trapped thousands in indefinite punishment.
The IPP was meant to protect the public instead, it has punished uncertainty itself. It is time to end this injustice once and for all.