🛑 Justice Alert: END THE “MONUMENTAL INJUSTICE” OF IPP SENTENCES

Today we have heard The Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood announce a temporary change in the law, to release prisoners after completing 40% of their sentence in prison rather than 50%. But for those on an IPP sentence they once again see others released whilst they continue to languish in prison.

LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR JUSTICE

Social media sensation Peter Stefanovic, a lawyer, campaigner & CEO of CAMPAIGN FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE has joined a coalition of 70 criminal justice experts, civil society organisations, leading activists and campaigners in signing an open letter to Keir Starmer’s new Labour Government and to the Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, calling on them to deliver crucial reforms to Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences, a national scandal which has claimed more than 100 lives since 2005.

Peter Stefanovic has produced films which have been viewed hundreds of million of times, his latest video covers some of his concerns expressed in the letter, he said:

“I’ve just signed a letter calling on the new Justice Secretary to work at pace to end one of the most shocking, cruel, inhumane, degrading and monumental injustices of the past half-century – IPP sentences – a scandal which has a already claimed the lives of 90 people serving IPP sentences in prison and a further 31 that we know of in the community”

He continued:

“I cannot overstate the urgency on this – in June one person serving an IPP sentence – a staggering 12 years over tariff set himself alight, another began his second hunger strike. This insanity has got to end – we must now put a stop to this inhumane and indefensible treatment which has absolutely no place in a modern Britain and political leaders  – previously lacking the courage to take action – must now find the courage to do so.”

BACKGROUND

IPP sentences were introduced in England and Wales by the New Labour government with the Criminal Justice Act 2003, as it sought to prove it was tough on law and order. They were put in place to detain indefinitely serious offenders who were perceived to be a risk to the public. However, they were also used against offenders who had committed low-level crimes.

Astonishingly, this sentence has led to some people spending 18 years in jail for trying to steal a coat or imprisoned for 11 years for stealing a mobile phone. Another served 16 years in jail on a three-year IPP tariff for stealing a flower pot at the age of 17.

ABOLISHMENT OF THE IPP SENTENCE

In 2012, after widespread condemnation and a ruling by the European court of human rights that such sentences were, “arbitrary and therefore unlawful”, IPP terms were abolished by the Conservative government. But the measure was not retrospective, and thousands remain in prison.

EGREGIOUS MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE

Former supreme court justice Lord Brown called IPP sentences: “the greatest single stain on the justice system”. When Michael Gove was justice secretary, he recommended, “executive clemency” for IPP prisoners who had served terms much longer than their tariffs. But he didn’t act on it. Lord Blunkett, the Labour Home Secretary who introduced the sentences, regrets them, stating: “I got it wrong.” And more recently, Dr Alice Edwards, the UN rapporteur for torture has called IPP sentences an “egregious miscarriage of justice.” Even former Justice Secretary Alex Chalk KC has called them a stain on the justice system, despite that, the previous Conservative Government refused to implement the Justice Committees recommendation to re-sentence all prisoners subject to IPP sentences.

HOUSE OF LORDS DEBATE

In a debate in the House of Lords in May, Lord Ponsonby – leading for Labour on justice said:

“In Government we will work at pace to bring forward an effective action plan that will allow the safe release of IPP prisoners where possible”

RESOLVE THIS INJUSTICE

In their letter, the campaigners “urge the new government to honour its commitment, made in opposition, to “work at pace” to resolve this injustice.

Stefanovic says “The new government must now honour the commitment it made in opposition and work at pace to end this cruel, inhumane, degrading and most monumental of injustices”