Experts condemn indefinite sentences

2 Aug 07
A hastily introduced sentencing policy is damaging the criminal justice system by overcrowding Britain's jails and reintroducing the miseries of asylums within prisons, a study has claimed.

03 August 2007

A hastily introduced sentencing policy is damaging the criminal justice system by overcrowding Britain's jails and reintroducing the miseries of asylums within prisons, a study has claimed.

Imprisonment for Public Protection, an indefinite punishment, was introduced with 'astonishing recklessness' by ministers in 2005, according to a Prison Reform Trust report published on July 31.

Calls for reform intensified the same day, after the Court of Appeal concluded that there had been a 'general and systemic failure' in imposing an indeterminate sentence on a convicted sex offender.

IPP sentences were intended for violent or dangerous prisoners whose crimes merited a ten-year sentence or more. But the PRT study claims that its widespread use, often for crimes with equivalent sentences worth three years or less, has frustrated efforts to ease the prison population crisis.

Around 2,700 prisoners are serving IPP sentences, yet ministers had predicted that just 900 would be covered by the tariff. Up to 12,000 prisoners could be serving IPPs by 2012.

Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons, said that ministers had 'no plan about how the prison system, already overcrowded, already under stress, was going to deal with [IPPs]'.

Prisons minister David Hanson recently commissioned a review of the sentences. Hanson said that prison boards, staff and visitors had 'all indicated that there are issues with the operation of IPPs'.

Problems emerged because the sentences are used to imprison people with no planned release date. But many prisons housing inmates on IPP tariffs cannot offer the parole courses necessary for their full rehabilitation, meaning that few leave jail. Just five prisoners have been released following IPP sentences.

The trust's study also suggests that people with mental health problems could be over-represented because the system does not unpick 'dangerous' criminals from those with vulnerable disorders. The study compares such prisoners with those held in Victorian asylums.

Juliet Lyons, PRT director, said: 'IPPs have become a ferocious, unjust law that, in two years, have catapulted around 3,000 people into jail for who knows how long.'

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said the lack of rehabilitation courses was a problem. But she added: 'These are sentences imposed on dangerous offenders in order to protect the public.'

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