Inmates Left In Limbo By Failures In New Sentences

High court judges yesterday dealt a fresh blow to the government’s handling of the prison crisis when they ruled that inmates serving new “open-ended” sentences had unlawfully been left in overcrowded local prisons without access to the compulsory rehabilitation programmes they need to secure their release.

Two appeal court judges said there had been a “general and systemic legal failure” in the treatment of more than 3,000 prisoners serving one of the new indeterminate public protection (IPP) sentences, under which they are supposed to be held until they no longer pose a risk to the public.

The court said that keeping such prisoners beyond their tariff date – the minimum release date set by the judge – without access to the means of reducing the risk they pose was “arbitrary, unreasonable and unlawful”.

The Ministry of Justice said last night it would appeal against the decision and was making available a further £3m to provide extra places on rehabilitation courses. While it is unlikely that compensation will be paid if the appeal fails, some IPP prisoners may have to be released when they reach the end of their tariff, regardless of the risk they pose.

The ruling yesterday came after two IPP prisoners, David Walker and Nicholas Wells, both with recommended tariffs of 12 and 18 months, challenged their continued imprisonment when no offending behaviour courses were available in their prisons. They argued that the parole board therefore had no means of assessing whether they still posed a danger.

Lord Justice Laws, sitting with Mr Justice Mitting, said: “To the extent that the prisoner remains incarcerated after tariff expiry without any current and effective assessment of the danger he does or does not pose, his detention cannot in reason be justified. It is therefore unlawful.” Anthony Robson, the National Offender Management Service (Noms) official responsible for IPP prisoners, said people with a tariff of less than five years were “languishing” in local prisons with little access to rehabilitation programmes.

The extra £3m was unlikely to be fully effective for 18 months. “The prison population is swollen by persons whose incarceration retributive justice does not require and whose release executive management does not allow,” the judges concluded. John Dickinson, representing David Walker, said it was officially estimated that the current 9,000 IPP and life sentences could reach 25,000 by 2012. Noms testified the system could only deal with a “lifer population” of 6,500.

The Ministry of Justice said a review due to report next month would shake up the management of IPP prisoners.

Meanwhile ministers’ hopes of curbing the rise in the prison population in England and Wales by appealing to the courts to use community punishments for non-violent offenders suffered a blow.

Latest official sentencing figures show the proportion of offenders fined or given community penalties dropped last year while the proportion sent to prison has remained stable.

Prison numbers in England and Wales once again topped 80,000 last Friday.

FAQ: IPPs

What are they?
The indeterminate sentence for public protection (IPP), introduced in April 2005, is a new kind of “life” sentence in that it is open-ended. The prisoner has no release date and does not get out until a parole board decides he or she is no longer a risk to the public.

Who gets them?
Offenders convicted of one of 153 specified sexual or violent offences which carry a maximum prison sentence of 10 years or more, and who are considered to be a danger to the public.

How many have been imposed?
IPPs have proved highly popular with courts and, with their number rising by 30% in the last year to 3,010. They are a major driver of the shortage of prison space. Officials say there could be 25,000 people on IPPs by 2012.