Even so, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Haywood, a former justice of the Supreme Court, described IPPs as a "form of preventive detention - bring this terrible scourge to an end".

Ipp sentencing challenge

But his hands are tied because politicians cannot tell judges what sentences to pass in individual cases. What the justice secretary can do is to seek changes in the law if he thinks it is operating unfairly.

Prison population (England and Wales)
2007	79,734
2008	83,194
2009	83,454
2010	85,002
2011	85,374
2012	86,048
2013	83,842
2014	85,509
2015	85,884
2020 ?	90,200
Source: The Ministry of Justice

A law that has come in for a great deal of criticism is the former sentence of imprisonment for public protection, known as IPP.
Offenders were given a notional minimum term, known as the tariff, but they could be detained indefinitely after that term had expired.
The sentence was introduced under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 when Lord Blunkett was Labour's home secretary, and abolished at the end of 2012, when Kenneth Clarke was the Conservative minister responsible for sentencing policy.
But abolition was not retrospective. In June this year, more than 4,600 prisoners were still serving IPPs.
By September, more than three-quarters had completed their minimum term and 392 IPP prisoners had served more than five times their tariff.
The government's policy is that IPP prisoners should continue to be detained until they can persuade the Parole Board, at a hearing, that the risks they pose to the public are safely manageable in the community.

'Terrible scourge'

But the Parole Board has a backlog of cases waiting to be heard - although that was reduced by 18% during the first 10 months of 2015 as a result of increased funding.


Even so, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Haywood, a former justice of the Supreme Court, described IPPs as a "form of preventive detention - internment - entirely alien to our traditional criminal justice approach".
He called on the justice secretary to "bring this terrible scourge to an end".

                           

Image caption Lord Brown has been highly critical of IPPs

Although Michael Gove could do that, if he was persuaded to, he cannot issue sentencing guidelines for particular types of crime.
That's the job of the Sentencing Council, which was set up by Parliament to promote consistency in sentencing while maintaining the independence of the judiciary.
It recommends sentences according to the relative seriousness of different offences and the seriousness of the offender's behaviour relative to that of others convicted of the same offence.
Sometimes the council's guidelines are likely to result in shorter sentences (than they would have received before the guidelines were issued) and so the prison population will go down.
Some middle-ranking cases can be tried either by magistrates or by judge and jury.

From March 2016, magistrates will be encouraged not to send cases for trial in the Crown Court if they can be heard by the magistrates themselves.
Magistrates have more limited sentencing powers although, if necessary, they can send a convicted defendant to be sentenced in the Crown Court.

 

Sentencers will also be reminded to give a full one-third discount to those who plead guilty at the earliest opportunity, even if the evidence against the defendant is overwhelming.

Sometimes Sentencing Council guidelines that attempt to get the courts to pass shorter sentences may backfire and produce the opposite result.
The council's chairman, Lord Justice Treacy, recently admitted that new guidelines for serious assaults had led to longer sentences, despite predictions that punishments would be less severe. The guidelines will now be revised.

Confusion

And sometimes offenders fail to grasp how long they will spend behind bars.
Anybody convicted of murder can expect to spend 15 years in prison, or 25 years if the accused was carrying a knife or other weapon.

It is not widely understood that offenders sentenced to life imprisonment must serve their tariffs in full before being considered for release on licence, unlike other offenders who are likely to be released after serving less than half their sentences.



Prison population (England and Wales) 200779,734 200883,194 200983,454 201085,002 201185,374

Joshua Rozenberg legal commentator

Prison watch uk

I offer one solution to at least improve the situation.
The Parole Board carries out a thorough risk assessment before releasing a prisoner. During this time inmates serving IPP sentences may well be held in open prisons, to help them adjust to life in the outside.
But to get to an open jail, prisoners undergo a thorough risk assessment and, of course, they could walk out of their jails whenever they choose. By staying there, surely these men have proved they are not a risk.
Common sense and justice should prevail. This ugly stain on the criminal justice landscape can and should be removed forthwith.

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