#RIPtheIPP Sentences
Why abolition of the devastating IPP sentence should be a priority
Protests in wake of the policing of the vigil for Sarah Everard have brought to light what marginalised and oppressed groups already knew – that expanding criminal justice powers as the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Bill does -- is a serious threat to civil liberties and human rights. The PCSC bill simultaneously enacts policies based on punitive ideology, not evidence of what reduces crime. One important missed opportunity in the Bill is the chance to retrospectively abolish the Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection – known as the IPP sentence. We are UNGRIPP – an organisation that campaigns for changes to the IPP sentence. Here we outline why change matters, and what you can do to #RIPtheIPP, alongside #KilltheBill campaigning efforts.
A story of another Bill – what is the IPP sentence?
In 2005, in wake of New Labour’s ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 came into law. This Act introduced the IPP sentence. It was designed for “dangerous offenders” who had already committed serious crime (from a wide list of 153 offences), and who judges deemed to pose a serious ongoing risk. The sentence functions in exactly the same way as a life sentence – the person is given a set number of years to serve in prison which is calculated based on the seriousness of their offence (known as a “tariff”) and is then detained indefinitely until they can satisfy the Parole Board that they are safe to be released into the community. They then live under the restrictions of a license for the rest of their life, and they can be returned indefinitely to prison for breaching their license conditions. There are very few countries where a life sentence can be imposed for 153 different crimes, including things like affray and criminal damage.
Theory vs reality
In theory, the IPP sentence gives people time to access rehabilitative support, which addresses the practical, social and psychological problems that underlie their offending. It protects the public by releasing those who no longer pose a risk, and continues to detain those who do. This theory made the sentence popular with judges and politicians. In practice, the IPP has had terrible consequences. Its creator, then Labour MP David Blunkett, has since called it “the greatest single stain on our justice system”, and has called for its abolition. He openly acknowledges that the sentence was a huge mistake, and the reasons are manifold.
A legacy of failings and suffering
The Government predicted that the IPP sentence would be given to around 900 people. It was actually given to 8,711 people between 2005 and 2013. It was then abolished by the Government following a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights that the sentence breached Article 5(1), the right to liberty and security. Far from being reserved for serious offences, many people were given tariffs of less than 2 years. The shortest was 28 days. The prison system was utterly unequipped to deal with a large influx of people with no definite release date. It could not provide the structured programme of rehabilitation that the sentence demanded, leaving thousands refused Parole due to lack of access to help. This created further problems.
Indefinite detention itself wreaks havoc with people’s mental health. Uncertainty, anxiety, and eventually despair after repeated Parole failures, combined with the traumatic environment of prison itself, produce exactly the opposite of what is needed for lasting behaviour change. IPP prisoners harm themselves at a higher rate than prisoners serving other types of sentence. Sixty-five people on IPP sentences have taken their own lives in prison. The psychologically toxic nature of the sentence then has knock-on effects for parole, where people are deemed to still pose a risk to society because of either reactive behaviour to their distress or ceasing to cooperate with the system, due to alienation and mistrust of the state that continually detains them.
State decision-makers (including psychologists, Probation workers, and the Parole Board) are already tasked with the impossible job of accurately predicting individuals’ risk of future harm. This naturally makes them risk-averse, and unlikely to recommend release for anybody who does not reach an ideal of compliant behaviour. The majority of us would fail to reach these impossible expectations in conditions of harsh prison environments, reduced liberty and extreme uncertainty. Nor do the problems end on release from prison. People serving the IPP sentence can be recalled for committing further offences, for suspicion of committing further offences, for substance-related lapses, for failing to reside where they are supposed to, for being late for probation appointments, and for anything else that Probation deems suggestive that they pose an increasing risk of harm.
Arbitrary and disproportionate detention
The IPP sentence was abolished, so the courts no longer use the sentence. But it was not abolished retrospectively for those already serving it. Sadly, the ECHR’s ruling that IPP sentences are a breach of human rights is well-founded. On 31st December 2020, 95% of people in prison serving an IPP sentence had passed their tariff expiry date. Of those, nearly half (48%) had served 8 or more years longer than the tariff given to them. At the most oppressive end of the spectrum are 200 people who received a tariff of less than 2 years, but have served at least 10 years beyond their tariff expiry date. This results in situations that challenge most notions of what proportionate punishment should be. Such cases often include people convicted of minor thefts or those who set fire to unoccupied buildings or their own homes, on account of mental distress. Their resultant inability to cope with prison and the disconnect between their crime and sentence result in an emotional and behavioural breakdown that entrenches them in the system, labelled as an ongoing risk.
Civic alienation and intergenerational harm
Currently, 3,187 people are still serving the IPP sentence in prison, and thousands more on license. Many of those who received the sentences as teenagers are now in their early 30s. The IPP sentence has deprived them of the years in which most people form lasting relationships, build roots, and start families. When they are released, living the life that society demands of them will be an enormous challenge, as will overcoming the sense of injustice that many now feel, knowing that they are serving an abolished sentence. A consistent theme in the stories of people serving IPP sentences that contact us is justice: almost all of them (and their families) agree that they deserved to go to prison for their crime. Almost none of them think it is just to detain them indefinitely for it.
For parents, partners, children, and other loved ones there is further pain. UNGRIPP is led by family members of those serving an IPP sentence, and families have been the most prominent campaigning group, caught as they are in the oppressive grip of the criminal justice system, despite having committed no crime. Academic studies have clearly shown that family members suffer similar pains to the person serving the sentence: poorer health; increased distress; despair; hopelessness; financial strain and civic alienation. Children who are old enough to remember their parent in prison (and many are not) also suffer distress and adjustment problems.
In short, the ideal rehabilitated citizen that the IPP sentence sought to create, exists nowhere except in the fantasies of the politicians who created it, and who continue to state that it is justified on the basis of public protection. Instead, the sentence has created a generation of families struggling with alienation, trauma and damaged, whose efforts to rebuild crime-free lives are continually blighted by state control, rather than supported by properly funded and structured access to help. This is in significant part due to the wider political move toward control, and the erosion of fairness, dignity and proportionality in punishment. The rhetoric and reality of the IPP sentence are not especially different to those contained in the current PCSC Bill: claims to introduce a host of measures that will be “tough on crime”, which in fact are mechanisms of control for people that those in power deem unsavoury, and do little to cut crime.
Real-life impact
Among the many people and families who have suffered from the IPP sentence are Tommy Nicol and his sister Donna Mooney, Shaun Lloyd and his mother Shirley Debono, James Ward and his sister April Ward, and Charlotte (Charlie) Nokes and her father Stephen Nokes.
Tommy Nicol received the IPP sentence for stealing a car and injuring the owner. He received a 4-year tariff. After 6 years, following difficulties accessing recommended therapeutic help, he experienced an acute mental health crisis in prison and took his life. His sister, Donna Mooney, campaigns for change to the IPP sentence.
Shaun Lloyd received the IPP sentence for robbing a mobile phone. He received a two year and 9 month tariff. He served 8 years before being released from prison. He has a partner and child. His mum Shirley also campaigns for change.
James Ward received the IPP sentence for setting fire to a mattress, following mental health struggles. He received a 10-month tariff. He served 11 years in prison before being released, following a high profile media campaign by his sister April, where she described how the sentence severely worsened James’s mental health problems.
Charlotte (Charlie) Nokes received the IPP sentence for attempted robbery. She received a 15-month tariff, and served 8 years before she died in prison in 2016, but not before communicating her despair about ever being released from prison and a decline in her mental health. All the women in prison on the IPP sentence have served beyond their tariff but are still detained.
What can you do to help?
Before #KilltheBill began trending, UNGRIPP began a campaign encouraging people to write to their MPs, asking for them to push for changes to the IPP sentence. There is no mention in the Bill of making changes to the sentence for those serving it, but it presents a rare legislative opportunity to do so. We never anticipated that so many people would become aware of the Bill and its failings. We are asking people to add one more thing to the already long list of problems: that the IPP sentence continues to inflict state-sanctioned harm on those serving it and their families, ignores the principle of proportionality in punishment, and undermines efforts of those serving it to rebuild their lives. The Bill’s delay presents an unprecedented opportunity to let MPs know that there is no place for this sentence in our justice system.
Please unite with us and let them know while we #KilltheBill, lets also #RIPtheIPP.
Read the stories of those affected by the IPP sentence on our social media channel The Forgotten
Listen to Donna Mooney & Deborah Coles on The Justice Gap Podcast
Help us increase our reach by following and promoting us: @UNGRIPP on Twitter