The Conservatives' Line on IPPs

Helpfully provided by a Conservative MP's office today:

IPPs, or Indeterminate sentences for Public Protection, were introduced in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. They can be imposed by the courts when an offender aged 18 or over is convicted of a serious specified violent or sexual offence for which the maximum penalty is 10 years or more.

In practice, what an IPP means is that rather than being released at the end of a sentence like most prisoners, IPP sentenced prisoners serve a minimum period of imprisonment or 'tariff' which is determined by the trial judge and designed to meet the needs of retribution and deterrence, and after that period, the IPP prisoner's release is not automatic, but will only occur once the Parole Board is satisfied that the risk of harm they pose to society is acceptable. The period of an IPP sentenced prisoner's incarceration is therefore indefinite. When they are finally released, IPP prisoners are subject to an IPP licence for at least 10 years, and may be recalled to prison throughout if deemed a danger to the public.

We are well aware of the problems that the IPP sentence has caused as a result of its implications not being sufficiently well thought through. Despite the Government acknowledging the problem, due to insufficient capacity and resources IPP sentenced prisoners still find it very difficult to access the courses in prisons which they need to complete in order to be eligible for release. They are therefore being held with little hope of progressing towards release, and at the same time are contributing to prison overcrowding. Secondly, despite the changes made in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act implemented in 2008 which set a minimum tariff of 2 years for IPP sentenced prisoners, the sentence is still being handed down to more offenders than the system can cope with. In December 2009 only 75 IPP prisoners had been released and stayed out of prison, while approximately 70 newly sentenced IPP prisoners were arriving every month. There are approximately 6,000 IPP prisoners in custody, the equivalent of 7% of the total prison population, of whom nearly half have passed their minimum tariff.

We intend to undertake a wholesale review of how IPPs operate as part of our sentencing programme in government. We also believe that our 'min-max' sentencing proposals will address some of these problems. Through setting many offenders a minimum and maximum time to serve in prison, with the possibility of the prisoner earning release before the maximum through good performance, sentencers will be provided with an alternative sentence for those offenders whose rehabilitative progress they feel needs to be particularly carefully monitored prior to any release decision. The existence of a maximum will also ensure that prisoners do not remain in prison indefinitely.