The IPP Scandal: A Tragedy of Inaction and Cynicism

The words ‘arbitrary detention’ usually conjure up images of far-flung lands: centralised dictatorships where the law is administered at the behest of a solitary figurehead for megalomaniacal ends, or totalitarian states where rubber-stamp courts take their cues from corrupt politicians. 

One country that probably doesn’t spring to mind is the United Kingdom. After all, the right to a fair trial was enshrined in the Magna Carta in 1215. The Common Law stretches back even further, dating back to the Norman Conquest. Given its time to mature and refine itself, the UK’s justice system should be the envy of the world. It is anything but. Amidst a decade of political turmoil, a scandal, first of negligence, and then of inaction, has stained the UK’s justice system.

Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences were introduced by the Labour Party under the Criminal Justice Act (2003), with the first sentencing under the system occurring two years later. Unlike other inmates who receive a fixed custodial sentence, IPP prisoners receive a ‘tariff’, a minimum amount of time they have to serve in prison before they can be released. Once their tariff is over, a prisoner’s release is subject to a Parole Board’s approval.

Importantly, IPP inmates are only released from prison if they can prove to the panel of experts making up the Parole Board that they are no longer a threat to the public. The ordeal doesn’t end upon release. Until recent changes by the Labour Party, IPP prisoners were burdened with a lifetime licence, meaning thousands of released inmates faced the prospect of being recalled to prison for even trivial breaches of their licence conditions. 

If you think this burden of proof encumbers prisoners with an impossible task, you’d be in good company. Ken Clarke, Conservative Party grandee and former chancellor, said the same thing in a 2016 radio phone-in. Clarke, serving in David Cameron’s cabinet as Justice Secretary, abolished IPP sentences in 2012, declaring them a ‘stain’ on British democracy. However, while no prisoner has been handed an IPP sentence since, they were not abolished retrospectively, meaning any prisoner still serving one will have to do so until the Parole Board deems them no longer a threat. 

This has created a scenario where a sentencing programme, originally introduced to apply to just hundreds of violent offenders, has, as of 2024, incarcerated upwards of 8,000 people, many of whom committed relatively minor offences. To this day, despite being abolished 12 years ago, 2,694 IPP prisoners are still serving indefinite sentences. Such are the perversities of the system, 5 prisoners currently incarcerated have served over 16 years, despite receiving a minimum tariff of under six months, according to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ). Almost no one would support a justice system that incarcerates someone for 18 years for attempting to steal a cigarette, or one that issues a recall to prison because of the use of unprescribed anti-anxiety medication. But this is the system IPP inmates are up against. 

The argument against IPP sentences is two-fold. The first concerns the principle of the rule of law. Over the years, as the UK’s system of Common Law developed, the notion that the burden of proof lay with the accuser rather than the accused became formally codified. It underpins not only the UK’s legal system but also acts as the central pillar upon which the entire Western world’s systems of adversarial justice are built. For an IPP prisoner trying desperately to convince the Parole Board of their rehabilitation, the burden of proof is switched. Prisoners must prove their innocence, rather than the other side proving their guilt.

The presumption of innocence, the most basic of fundamental legal rights, has been denied for thousands of prisoners serving IPP sentences. The Parole Board has the power to further incarcerate a prisoner when they think them likely to commit a crime in the future, not the proof that one has been committed in the past.

The second argument has to do with the psychological implications of the IPP sentencing programme. Despite strict government promises from the outset, prisoners are denied access to the necessary rehabilitative courses they need to prove they are no longer a threat to the public. This problem has been exacerbated by prison overcrowding, caused by a Conservative era penchant for tougher sentences that failed to act as a deterrent.   

This failure to adequately provide the necessary courses, combined with the indeterminate nature of the sentence, hems IPP prisoners into a Kafkaesque spiral of psychological decay. Having already served years longer than their sentence, and with no prospect of being provided access to the necessary resources to rehabilitate themselves for release, an IPP prisoner’s anger soon turns to hopelessness, inflicting debilitating mental health problems that only worsen their behaviour while inside. This in turn dampens the already slim prospects of release. 

The statistics surrounding self-inflicted trauma makes for grim reading. IPP prisoners are two-and-a-half times more likely to self-harm while in prison; 90 have taken their own lives inside. 

Governments of both colours have cited concerns about public safety should IPP prisoners be resentenced and ultimately released. Though these concerns are the natural predilection of any government, fears surrounding re-offending, and the unfavourable press coverage that will inevitably follow, should not supersede the necessity of justice. 

Labour Peer Lord Woodley has authored a private members bill outlining pragmatic next steps the Labour Government could take. It includes the establishment of an expert committee to advise the Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, throughout the resentencing process, preventing the release of dangerous criminals, thereby honouring any government's duty to protect the public. The prospect of the bill becoming law remains slim. 

The failure to take even reasonable measures to alleviate the suffering of thousands of British prisoners is a testament to a politics that places cynicism above all else. It speaks to a modus operandi within government that prioritises headlines over humanity. Inaction is a choice. How many more have to suffer the indignity of injustice before our politicians do the right thing?

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Rafesmar

Licence.

No image changes made.