Prison service 'cannot cope with indefinite sentences'

Prison service 'cannot cope with indefinite sentences'

Government urged to reconsider 'unsustainable' policy

Controversial open-ended prison sentences introduced to protect the public may have to be scrapped after inspectors warned that their cost to the penal system outweighed any benefits.

Just 75 of almost 6,000 convicts held under the indeterminate sentence for public protection (IPP) have won their liberty since the measure was brought in by Labour four years ago.

The result, said Chief Inspector of Probation, Andrew Bridges, and the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, is that prisons have become swamped with inmates whom the probation service did not have the resources to deal with. They warned that the situation has become "unsustainable" and called on ministers to begin a major review of the policy.

Mr Bridges said: "A high number of prisoners remain in the system and continue to enter it. There will continue to be huge numbers of such prisoners that neither the probation service nor the prison system currently has the capacity to handle effectively.

"We consider that the present position is unsustainable. This suggests the need for a major policy review at ministerial level. Such a review would need to consider whether the resources needed to manage these sentences properly are proportionate to the benefits they might achieve."