A simple tweak of the law by a desperate government has managed to more
than double the number of Lifers in under ten years. Remarkable.
It was once the case that in order to receive a Life sentence you had to
do something pretty horrible. Murder, obviously, got you a mandatory
life sentence. Then there were discretionary life sentences, dished out
for lesser crimes but where Life was a sentencing option. It had to be
the case that to receive a discretionary life sentence, there had to be
firm evidence that you were either unstable or on an escalating path of
violence. Receiving such a sentence was a Very Big Deal.
But the government, faced with some popular panic whose specifics I
forget (there are so many), diluted the meaning of the sentence whilst
simultaneously broadening its scope.
These sentences are "not really" life sentences, only open-ended ones.
The terminology is different but the reality is exactly the same. These
are Indefinite Sentences for Public Protection - IPP.
You don't have to do anything particularly serious to receive such a
sentence, which is why there are over five and a half thousand people
serving one, and the number rises each week.
The pettiness of some offences which have attracted these sentences is
revealed by the tariff portion of these sentences. The tariff, minimum
term, equates with the fixed sentence they would have received before
IPPs were invented. The average tariff for IPP's is a mere 18 months;
there are those who have had a tariff of one day.
These sentences are a travesty on several levels. Their purpose is
fundamentally objectionable. IPP are intended to hold people in prison
on an assumption that they pose a future danger to society, hence their
open ended nature. When it comes to depriving people of their liberty
and inflicting upon them and their families the degradations that flow
from imprisonment, I firmly hold that it should be no more than a
punishment for the crime already committed.
Detaining people on the basis of what they may possibly do in the future
is wholly unjust. It can be dressed up with whatever politico-legal
sleight of hand available, but it remains the fact that punishing people
for what they may possibly do in future is a repellent act.
Added to these principled objections are practical ones. IPP's can only
be released if they can show that they have "addressed their offending
behaviour". This is done by completing "offending behaviour courses" and
then parading these achievements before the Parole Board.
Alas, the side effect of knee jerk policy making is to speak first, try
and make it work later. With IPP's, this means that there are
insufficient places on these courses for them to complete them before
the end of their tariff. If your tariff is 18 months and the waiting
list for the course is 2 years, there is no chance for you to
demonstrate before the PB that you are fit for release.
Way over 2,000 of those serving IPP's are over their tariff and the
Ministry accepts that this is not necessarily the fault of the
prisoners. So bizarre and wicked is this situation, that the High Court
ruled last year that, in effect, the sentence has become so arbitrary as
to become unlawful.
The higher courts plugged this political problem on the well known legal
doctrine of "tough shit". And so these men remain in prison. A similar
situation applies to those who are due Parole hearings, their only
avenue of release. The PB is so overstretched that people are not
getting their hearing as prescribed by law, some serving years extra
just waiting for the hearing.
The courts have ruled that this is a terrible situation but, alas, there
is no one in particular to blame. And so they have now blocked IPP's
from launching legal challenges to demand their right to a parole
hearing. It's no one’s fault, so we are back to "tough shit".
Actually, we know whose fault it is. It is the governments fault. They
invented IPP sentences and talked tough on sentencing. The judiciary
responded and used IPP sentences with some vigour. The government, quick
to throw people in prison, neglected to provide the resources for these
prisoners to undertake their offending behaviour courses, and failed to
fund the Parole Board for this doubling of their workload.
This situation reflects a profound shift in sentencing philosophy that
was overlooked by legislatures and society. Rather than being sent to
prison for a fixed time as a punishment for the crime committed, many
are now detained not only for the crime, but on the basis of what they
may do in future.
It seems obvious to me that this is a wicked injustice, a shift in
philosophy that should have received a wide debate. Even so, to
implement this schema without funding the mechanisms to administer it,
such the parole board, strips whatever legitimacy may have existed from
this shameful enterprise.
The IPP Injustce
A simple tweak of the law by a desperate government has managed to more
than double the number of Lifers in under ten years. Remarkable.
It was once the case that in order to receive a Life sentence you had to
do something pretty horrible. Murder, obviously, got you a mandatory
life sentence. Then there were discretionary life sentences, dished out
for lesser crimes but where Life was a sentencing option. It had to be
the case that to receive a discretionary life sentence, there had to be
firm evidence that you were either unstable or on an escalating path of
violence. Receiving such a sentence was a Very Big Deal.
But the government, faced with some popular panic whose specifics I
forget (there are so many), diluted the meaning of the sentence whilst
simultaneously broadening its scope.
These sentences are "not really" life sentences, only open-ended ones.
The terminology is different but the reality is exactly the same. These
are Indefinite Sentences for Public Protection - IPP.
You don't have to do anything particularly serious to receive such a
sentence, which is why there are over five and a half thousand people
serving one, and the number rises each week.
The pettiness of some offences which have attracted these sentences is
revealed by the tariff portion of these sentences. The tariff, minimum
term, equates with the fixed sentence they would have received before
IPPs were invented. The average tariff for IPP's is a mere 18 months;
there are those who have had a tariff of one day.
These sentences are a travesty on several levels. Their purpose is
fundamentally objectionable. IPP are intended to hold people in prison
on an assumption that they pose a future danger to society, hence their
open ended nature. When it comes to depriving people of their liberty
and inflicting upon them and their families the degradations that flow
from imprisonment, I firmly hold that it should be no more than a
punishment for the crime already committed.
Detaining people on the basis of what they may possibly do in the future
is wholly unjust. It can be dressed up with whatever politico-legal
sleight of hand available, but it remains the fact that punishing people
for what they may possibly do in future is a repellent act.
Added to these principled objections are practical ones. IPP's can only
be released if they can show that they have "addressed their offending
behaviour". This is done by completing "offending behaviour courses" and
then parading these achievements before the Parole Board.
Alas, the side effect of knee jerk policy making is to speak first, try
and make it work later. With IPP's, this means that there are
insufficient places on these courses for them to complete them before
the end of their tariff. If your tariff is 18 months and the waiting
list for the course is 2 years, there is no chance for you to
demonstrate before the PB that you are fit for release.
Way over 2,000 of those serving IPP's are over their tariff and the
Ministry accepts that this is not necessarily the fault of the
prisoners. So bizarre and wicked is this situation, that the High Court
ruled last year that, in effect, the sentence has become so arbitrary as
to become unlawful.
The higher courts plugged this political problem on the well known legal
doctrine of "tough shit". And so these men remain in prison. A similar
situation applies to those who are due Parole hearings, their only
avenue of release. The PB is so overstretched that people are not
getting their hearing as prescribed by law, some serving years extra
just waiting for the hearing.
The courts have ruled that this is a terrible situation but, alas, there
is no one in particular to blame. And so they have now blocked IPP's
from launching legal challenges to demand their right to a parole
hearing. It's no one’s fault, so we are back to "tough shit".
Actually, we know whose fault it is. It is the governments fault. They
invented IPP sentences and talked tough on sentencing. The judiciary
responded and used IPP sentences with some vigour. The government, quick
to throw people in prison, neglected to provide the resources for these
prisoners to undertake their offending behaviour courses, and failed to
fund the Parole Board for this doubling of their workload.
This situation reflects a profound shift in sentencing philosophy that
was overlooked by legislatures and society. Rather than being sent to
prison for a fixed time as a punishment for the crime committed, many
are now detained not only for the crime, but on the basis of what they
may do in future.
It seems obvious to me that this is a wicked injustice, a shift in
philosophy that should have received a wide debate. Even so, to
implement this schema without funding the mechanisms to administer it,
such the parole board, strips whatever legitimacy may have existed from
this shameful enterprice.
1 comments:
Michael Gove, Minister for Justice 
HMP Bullingdon
£50m to keep them in per year!
Another interesting point is that the government insist that they will not make the new rules about IPPs not being given if the tariff would be less than 2 years retrospective - but they are willing to use a comparatively minor offence retrospectively (i.e. 21 years before) to create the IPP. Where's the logic and fairness?
It would be really good if readers of this wonderful blog could write a letter to the government about it and whilst doing that write a second letter about Ben himself who should also be released.
Just think if the judicial system properly assessed and released people like Ben, and those mentioned above, they would be able to free up hundreds of places in the system and would not need to build mammoth new jails etc.
Ben is in favour of reason over rioting – rightly in my view. But reason falls on deaf ears, mostly. It’s going to take for ever at this rate. Does anyone know of an effective prison reform/abolition org out there? One that actually makes things happen?
Dear Prime Minister,
Re: Cost to the Tax Payer – The IPP Sentence
Britain is overwhelmed with debt. As the incoming Prime Minister you have the unenviable task of reducing the vast deficit left by the last government. It is time to cut waste from areas in which money is being spent for no ascertainable benefit.
In March 2010 the total prison population stood at 85,608, which is approximately 800 more than the highest figure predicted for March 2010 . The prisons are, by anyone’s estimation, full. A very significant number of these prisoners are serving Imprisonment for Public Protection. These prisoners are given sentences by judges who set their minimum term – the ‘punishment’ period - at half of the length of a determinate sentence.
In reality, the expiry of the minimum term is almost never the date on which the prisoner is released. In fact only about 1% of all IPP prisoners have been released and have subsequently stayed out of prison. This means, for example, that someone sentenced to a 12 month IPP in November 2006 (the equivalent to a two year determinate sentence) could technically have been released in November 2007 but could still be in prison today. To date they would have served three years and six months, the equivalent of a seven-year determinate sentence.
There are approximately 6,000 IPP prisoners in custody, and the figure is rising at a rate of around 70 per month . With the average cost of keeping a prisoner in jail estimated at £40,000 per year this equates to a total of £240m per year for this class of prisoner alone, and which will continue to rise under the current system.
In order to have any chance of being released on parole, these prisoners are wholly reliant on demonstrating their reduction in risk while in prison. These prisoners are unable to access the courses they need because of the continuing problem of woefully inadequate funding. In a shockingly high number of cases, these people are simply not being given the opportunity to earn their release.
The previous government admitted that there were no centrally available reliable figures on the number of IPPs waiting to access courses. To compensate for the overcrowding, they embarked on a program of early release for determinate sentenced prisoners. There is a clear contradiction here which, we submit, cannot have been the intention of the sentencing judiciary.
Rather than being saddled with this enormously inefficient, not to mention ‘inhumane’ , regime we implore you to make your pledged wholesale review of sentencing, including the IPP, a priority. So much money is wasted currently holding individuals in prison who have, because of a lack of availability of courses, been unable to demonstrate that they are no longer dangerous to the satisfaction of the Parole Board.
We are not suggesting that offenders should not be punished for their offences: On the contrary, we wholeheartedly support your proposals for mini-max sentences. If prisoners have definite dates for their earliest and latest release this will give them an impetus to want to earn release as soon as possible. This will encourage good behaviour amongst all prisoners, rather than just those serving indeterminate sentences who are scared to ‘step out of line’ while those currently serving determinate sentences aren’t as adversely affected if they are punished for misbehaviour.
Mini-max sentences will reduce pressure on the operation of the Prison Service as a whole by promoting good order inside prisons; they will enable this government to budget more accurately in terms of the annual cost of the Prison Service; and will still act as a sufficient deterrent in terms of serious crime.
The changes to IPP in 2008 did not go far enough – and there are many, many short tariff IPP prisoners still languishing in jail who were sentenced under the earlier regime. Only abolition of the IPP will put a stop to this wasteful expenditure.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Robinson
Emmersons Solicitors
All cases are in my opinion massively complicated.
I reckon that, collectively, we are the 'most knowledgeable' people to inhabit earth so far...(libraries at our fingertips etc.)
Although, knowledge is available, it (imo) aint helpin us any.
We still stuck.
For example, i worked with this chap (in general a nasty type with occasional decency and tons of v. diahroea) who said stuff that stayed with me; he'd been inside for 7 years, and would often remark "i'd do another 3 out of principle" . Describing a potential sentence for a beating he would inflict upon another.
I've an idea that this attitude aint too uncommon.
Its almost bearable when seeing this as two dumb/tough males wanting to beat seven bells o's..t outta each other... but template the action to a sexual or physical or mental situation where the concerened parties are unequal...
Raping out of some deranged principle?
I think that we have to accept that people have and continue to act in this manner.
Society has decieded these people need to be controlled. Or perhaps destroyed.
Imagine... "i'm free at last, those bastard screws kept me in for 4 years too long, i know, ill rape someone to prove i don't mind jail'
... if i've upset anyone i'm sorry...i've upset myself too.
I can see the idea that IPP demonstrates the muscle of law and order, controlling whoever at will.
I suppose justice has evolved to what it is now despite its incomprehensible nature. Evil people are human beings. Judges are human beings. All will fail at some point. (High Court judge that was convicted for years of child abuse towards her daughter springs to mind).
It looks like the trouble will always be, as Ben has pointed out numerous times, how to make the call? What does he have to do to prove he is 'minimal risk', same as everyone else? Will he change attitude to a psycho once he is described as safe?
I find paradoxical dilemmas such as this very unhelpful. Very easy to talk bullsh.t on paper.
Personally, i believe all people can do right by all. No matter what their history. No matter how evil the deed. No matter how many repititions of evil deed. And yes, in our lifetime. And no, not thru drugs/surgery.