By Brian Barder / @brianlb
Many things are badly wrong with our prisons policies: chronic over-crowding of ageing prisons, too many on short-term sentences with no time for rehabilitation, leading to high re-offending rates. But another little-noticed scandal is the system of Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection, oddly abbreviated to IPPs. Literally thousands of people are indefinitely incarcerated, sometimes for years after serving the punishment part of their sentences, but still kept in jail because they can’t prove that they won’t re-offend.
Last week I wrote this letter to the Guardian (which published a heavily edited version of it on 22 June):
Polly Toynbee is right to point to the obscene waste of public money involved in short-term prison sentences which achieve nothing (Forget being tough, it’s time to get realistic on crime, Comment & debate, 22 June). She might also have mentioned the folly, waste and injustice of Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection (IPPs), which currently add massively to shameful overcrowding in our prisons. They waste public money on a vast scale by keeping in prison thousands of people who have served their sentences imposed for punishment, rehabilitation and deterrence but who can’t prove to a Parole Board that they won’t reoffend if released, often because there are no places for them on the behaviour courses which they need to attend as a virtual condition for release.
These people are in preventive detention, being punished for future offences they haven’t committed, often with no hope of release, fearing that they are in prison for life, having already been punished for often quite minor offences. The onus is on them to prove a negative about the future, which is conceptually impossible as well as reversing the normal onus of proof. The proportion of IPPers so far released is minuscule. Justice Department ministers of the new government have acknowledged that the system is unacceptable: Crispin Blunt [, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice,] told parliament on 15 June that “We have 6,000 IPP prisoners, well over 2,500 of whom have exceeded their tariff point. Many cannot get on courses because our prisons are wholly overcrowded and unable to address offending behaviour. That is not a defensible position.”
It’s inhumane, unjust and a monumental waste of taxpayers’ money. All parties should now insist that the system is swept away and those IPPers who have served their minimum sentences should be released forthwith, either unconditionally or on licence. Here’s a useful cut in government spending that will benefit everyone.
IPPs are a New Labour invention that has failed. A welcome policy of the new government is its promise to review the voluminous crime, terrorism and prison legislation inherited from New Labour and in need of enlightened reform. A review of sentencing policy, one ingredient of this, is due to report by October. This offers a unique opportunity to get rid of IPPs for good. They inflict misery and fear on thousands of people who have paid the penalty for offending but now live in deadly fear that they will never be released. They inflict misery and fear on the families of those indefinitely incarcerated in preventive detention, not as punishment for offences they have committed and for which they have been punished, but because some men in suits are afraid that they may do it again if they agree to let them out. Perversely, the onus is on them to prove that they won’t reoffend: but how can they prove a negative about the future?
Three years ago I posted an article on my own blog trying to expose the injustice and indefensibility of IPPs. That article prompted 150 ‘comments’, many from relatives of IPP prisoners, expressing vividly and painfully their anguish and despair at the fate which has overtaken those they love, however flawed. Those comments have become a forum for IPP relatives to exchange their experiences, fears, hopes, and ideas about ways in which the system might be reformed. The forum now continues in comments on a new blog post in which I appeal to everyone, of whatever political persuasion, to write urgently to their MPs asking them to use their influence with Ken Clarke, the new Justice Secretary, or his Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Crispin Blunt (whose enlightened comments on IPPs I quoted in my letter to the Guardian – see above), to make sure that IPPs are within the remit of the review of sentencing policy promised by the new government: and to ensure that the outcome of the review will be to sweep away the whole IPP system, with all IPP prisoners who have served their tariffs (‘minimum sentences’) released unconditionally (or on licence) forthwith.
I would like to hope that LabourList readers, whatever their politics, will press their MPs (in their own words but perhaps quoting this) to approach Justice Department ministers accordingly. Conservative MPs may be most readily persuaded of the need to scrap IPPs by pointing to the horrific cost to the taxpayers – us -- of keeping in prison, year after year, thousands of people who shouldn’t be there. Ending IPPs and releasing IPP prisoners at the end of their tariffs might well make the costly programme of new prison building unnecessary, a handy contribution to deficit reduction on which this government is (in my view irrationally) fixated. Labour, old-style LibDem and other MPs may be more impressed by arguments about the inherent injustice and inhumanity of IPPs: the needless suffering and wrecking of people’s lives that they entail: the morally and intellectually dishonourable practice of locking people up for future offences that they haven’t committed and are in most cases no more likely to commit, if they are released, than the next man in the supermarket queue. Above all, it’s essential that Labour in parliament should not yield to the temptation to oppose abolition of this indefensible system just because it was introduced, unaccountably, by a Labour government.
Please write to your MP about this, and please don’t leave it until too late.
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The same used to apply to lifers, still does to some extent but not as bad as it used to be. For example, I received a tariff of 15 years. Because I was deemed to be dangerous (see Lifers, Tariffs and Dangerousness) special measures are applied. I was in the highest security Category "A". A Life Career plan (now Life Sentence Plan) was not drawn up until decategorised to "B". At 14 and a half years into a 15 year tariff, I got my first entry in my LSP! Once the punishment stage is over, retribution and deterrence, the treatment stage begins. As the system wasted the first 15 years, it now requires extra time to make me go through the various stages towards release, in other words, jumping through the hoops. That the system gets it wrong in more than 80% of risk to the public cases, does not appear to bother the system or the public who support the concept of public protection. The reality is, public protection is already incorporated into the sentence without a then knee-jerking Home Secretary adding public protection on top of public protection! When assessing risk to the public, the Parole Board, in effect, peers into a crystal ball, cup of tealeaves, or throws a dart at a dartboard, and makes a balanced assessment in which the public comes first and the prisoner a very poor second. Since the Parole Board started in 1967, it was directed to only release approximately 20% of cases. It remains at approximately 20% today! This means that approximately 80% of prisoners will not get parole regardless of the merits for release! I served 10 years over my tariff of 15 years because the system is corrupt and many of those operating it are incompetent.
IPPs I see nothing odd in the abbreviation. However, a look at penal history shows that it has been used before under other names such as extended sentence. The whole idea goes against the idea of time for the crime, and just desserts.
In the same way that IPPs have been ignored, the public have ignored prisoners human right to the vote. The media and public attack prisoners instead of the lawbreaking government.
Sometimes, I just despair at the lack of civilisation in our so-called liberal democracy.
Brian, we should pair up like MPs do to advance genuine causes.
It's said by those with more knowledge of the IPP statistics than mine that since the inception of the scheme, parole boards have approved the release of only 1 per cent of IPP prisoners who have served out their tariffs. This is a dreadful indictment of the whole system. The reasons are obvious: far too many IPPers can't get places on the courses which parole boards, despite denials, clearly in practice treat as an absolute condition even for consideration for release; those who do manage to get on to the courses have often had to wait for (sometimes) years to get their places; others again have to wait for years for their applications to be heard by a parole board, and some never even get to that point; and above all, parole boards have a vested interest in rejecting applications for release -- if they agree to release the applicant and he later goes on to commit another offence, the parole board may be blamed (by ministers or the police or the feral tabloids or the right-wing bloggers) for getting their prediction wrong, whereas rejecting the application carries no such risk for the parole board members. Of course it carries the risk of gross injustice to the applicant, whom they condemn to many more years in jail even if he is a totally reformed character: but that can never be proved against the parole board. So for them it's a no-brainer: why take an easily avoidable risk when the alternative is, on the surface anyway, risk-free?
Such is the morass that we sink into when we ruin people's lives on the basis of claiming to be able to predict their future behaviour. It's grotesque.
By all means let's 'pair up' to advance 'genuine causes', but let's agree that abolishing IPPs is one of them. And the government's impending review of sentencing policy must be a rare opportunity to press it.
Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/
I worked in a prison for a number of years. Time and again I saw prisoners who wanted to address their offending behaviour but could not because they could not access appropriate treatment. IPPs made this problem much, much worse.
IPPs are akin to locking people up and throwing away the key, with the supposed safeguard that a prisoner could we released once they can prove that they have been reformed. Except the mechanism to prove that they have been reformed was never implemented. It is shameful.
Given the crime obsessed nature of TV drama, I'm often called upon to write about prison, and though I've done a number of prison visits, I really didn't know about the crazy injustice of this scheme.
Do you know how many of the offenders on IPP's are sex offenders? I would be interested to know. I know, through my work as a child protection social worker, that some people on IPP's are child sex offenders where there are grave concerns about the high risk of reoffending.
As you can imagine, I am therefore conflicted by your article and the issue in question.
Thanks
Steph
Surely the problem you allude to is that the desperate state of offending behaviour courses in UK prisons, with staff not being adequately trained, a lack or appropriate courses, and insufficient evidence that the courses actually work.
As a matter of principle, indeterminate sentences are wrong, if only because the state cannot get it's act together in order to offer the rehabilitative element of the sentence in an appropriate timescale.
Yes, I agree very much in principle re indeterminate sentences and in any other debate I would also be screaming from the rooftops about the injustice.
You're right - there are too few offender courses and too few trained probation officers who have the skills to cope with sex offenders. Also sex offenders tend to be imprisoned together in the same prisons in order that they can access courses when they are available and then 'frienships' between abusers can develop which can heighten the risks.
There is, you're right, insufficent evidence about whether these courses work and many people feel that they don't work at all. So, that brings me back to the issue of IPP's for certain sex offenders......
I came into contact with sex offenders as part of a contract in a prison. I hold no brief for them, but the more I read up on the courses, the more worried I became. Did you know for instance, according to Home Office stats that a first time offender is MORE likely to reoffend after completing the Enhanced Thinking Skills course. A course which is intended to make them think before they act?
Given that you seem concerned that the courses are of limited value, are you suggesting that a Life term would be appropriate for sex offenders? My understanding is that recidivism for sex offenders is akin to that of those who are released after a Life sentence. That is not to minimise their crimes, but to put it in context with other serious offenders. The reason for doing this is to make my final point.
Most Life terms are pointless and are only used to exact revenge upon those who commit the most serious crimes. Most murderers commit their crimes as part of an apocalyptic event. The chances therefore of reoffending are very small. I do not say that sex offenders behave in exactly the same way, but their reconviction rates are about the same. I would therefore think that Life terms for that class of offender in also pointless. I know there is the whole argument about "we don't know what they have been up to. They may have committed many previous crimes before they are caught". But, the key phrase for me is "we don't know what they have been up to" so we cannot prosecute them for it.
I'm not really sure what I am saying in terms of sentences. All I know, from my experience, is that there are child sex offenders who are still a substantial and realrisk being released from prison. In my work, we see the victims of these offenders on a regular basis.
Got to go out now, but will post later when I have given the issues some considered thought.
Thanks for the debate.
Steph
However as part of this job I had a regular flow of information about known high risk violent offenders who were released back in to the community because their sentence had ended.
I sat in a MAPPP (Multi-Agency Public Protection Panel) where the police were discussing how to manage a serial rapist who's victims were getting younger and younger. The protection plan put in place was pretty draconian, limiting movement, job, associations etc and still at the end of the case, the person who was the lead for this particular case asid - "you know for all this, he will rape again and there's nothing we can do about it".
And contrary to Brian's post they aren't given out for 'relatively minor offences' - they can only be applied to offences where the maximum sentence is at least 10 years - and specific violent and sexual offences at that.
You can't be given an indeterminate sentence for say repeat low level offending like shop lifting where you expect sentence to escalte the more someone offended.
I am still not entirely comfortable defending these sentences and it's vital they are used sparingly. But I also wouldn't be comfortable explaining to a rape victim that the crime could've been prevented.
Overall I would say this issue is much more complex than it is presented by the original author. Ideologically I wish they weren't ever considered necessary - but ideologically I guess I wish we didn't need prison at all.
{Quotation begins:] There are a considerable number of people who were given the IPP sentence with extremely short tariffs, 28 days being the shortest recorded (pre 2008). The sentencing judges considered that the punitive period should in these cases be short, after which the prisoner would become eligible for release. Because of the lack of resources for risk-reduction courses in prisons, a huge number of IPP prisoners remain in prison long after tariff expiry, yet without any opportunity to prove that they are no longer a danger to the public. That is not to say that all such prisoners are no longer dangerous: but that that ones who are no longer dangerous are not able to demonstrate it. As Law LJ said, the failure to allow IPP prisoners the opportunity to demonstrate their risk reduction is like ‘asking how many miles an army has marched through the night when there are no orders for it to march at all.’
There has been considerable confusion over this sentence, which had the effect of over-use by the judiciary since its introduction in April 2005. We know of cases in which prisoners have been given IPPs for setting fire to a wheelie bin, or for cutting someone’s hair in an argument. We are not saying that these crimes should go unpunished, but that when considered in terms of parity these people are potentially serving the equivalent of 8 or 9 year determinate sentences, which is more than others serve for manslaughter, GBH, rape, indecent assault, robbery and substantial drug offences. [End of quotation]
In the face of that evidence, I hope you will revisit your view that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the system. Perhaps you might also be persuaded by my response to some similarly fundamental reservations expressed in another comment on my blog.
(Incidentally I believe that the list of offences for which IPPs are supposed to be imposed is enormously long and includes some types of offence for which preventive detention is wholly unsuitable, even if you think that preventive detention is OK for some kinds of offence -- I don't.)
I sympathise with Stephanie's worry about the kinds of sex offenders who seem to be unable to stop re-offending if and when released. I think there are some situations in which one just has to accept that reoffending will occur, however hard you try to prevent it by action in the community, courses, probation, monitoring by social workers, and so forth. What I think should be firmly ruled out, though, is locking up sex offenders (or any other kinds of offenders) in a severe penal institution which is designed to punish, not to punish them but because society is scared to let them out. That is absolutely unconscionable and there should be no place for it on our statute book. Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot thought it was all right; it's not.
Brian
http://www.barder.com/ephems/