Kafka is alive and well and living in Britain

31 July 2007 - Runaway sentence causes havoc - the indeterminate sentence for public protection

The Prison Reform Trust today accuses the government of recklessly introducing the indeterminate sentence for public protection (IPP) that is stretching the stressed prison system to the point of breaking. A complete failure to debate, plan or resource the new sentence means that thousands of people are sentenced to a bureaucratic limbo where they have no means to work towards their release. So far almost 3,000 of these life sentences have been passed, many for relatively minor offences. Projections by the chairman of the Parole Board reveal that, unless checked or indeed overturned, we can expect over 12,000 people to be serving IPP sentences by 2012.

The briefing Indefinitely Maybe? How the indeterminate sentence for public protection is unjust and unsustainable, details how the sentence was framed carelessly, and the chaos it has brought to prison landings. It contains quotes from prisoners and their families that illustrate the desperate and unjust position they have been placed in.

On his visit to Belmarsh prison on 12 July, the new Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw promised a review of this indeterminate sentence. Speaking today, Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said:

“It is high time for a review of indeterminate sentences. They were designed as a technical measure to detain a small number of dangerous offenders. But badly drafted, and whipped up by the previous prime minister and home secretary, they have become a ferocious, unjust law that in two years has catapulted around 3,000 people into jail for who knows how long. This catastrophic change has been wished on the prison service without extra resources, leaving prisons under vast pressure and thousands of men held in overcrowded jails, beyond their tariff, with no means to show that they do not present a risk to the public. This is the Kafkaesque nature of modern day imprisonment.”

A ruling on the legality of locking people up until they complete courses and not then providing those courses, is expected from the High Court today. With a new government in place, the time is now right to end this hangover from the days of slapdash, headline grabbing legislation which has had dire unintended consequences.

The briefing recommends that the government:

• Review the use of the indeterminate sentence for public protection (IPP): has it been used as a specialised tool for serious violent and sexual crimes, or has it been taken up more generally than planned and more generally than useful? There is no doubt that some of the offences for which the sentence has been given are grave, but what is needed is a review of its overall use and effectiveness.
• Take full account of substantive criticism of IPP sentences levelled by, among others, the Lord Chief Justice, the chairman of the Parole Board and the Chief Inspector of Prisons.
• Issue guidelines to check the growth in the use of IPP sentences during the period they under review.
• Require courts to consider the question of ‘dangerousness’ much more carefully.
• Take immediate account of any decisions made as a result of judicial review of the failure to provide opportunities to undertake offending behaviour programmes in order to progress the IPP sentence.
• Revisit the 2003 act. For example: instead of IPPs being a default setting, operating as a ‘strike’ law, they could be handed down a separate and additional judicial decision, supported by evidence and separately appellable.
• Provide adequate information and support for prisoners and their families facing the prospect of an IPP.
• Look urgently at how the IPP sentenced is being administered in prisons, and to find ways to clear the backlogs.
• Establish proper recording and reporting mechanisms so that the full extent of the impact of the IPP sentence can be assessed and individual progress monitored.
• Tackle the resource needs of the Parole Board and the prison and probation services.
• Look at release and resettlement, people will need a far greater regime of support in leading a constructive life, and an end to the ‘recall to prison first, ask questions later’ approach.
• Conduct an urgent investigation into the number of IPP sentenced men and women in prison who have taken their own lives, and review safer custody procedures.
• Review specifically the prevalence and influence of mental illness on IPP sentencing and subsequent treatment in prison.

download it here

Independent article here.