New briefing on Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence

On Thursday this week (27 April), MPs will have the opportunity to debate the recently-published Justice Committee report on the IPP sentence.

Among the Committee’s recommendations was a resentencing exercise for all those, whether in prison or in the community, still subject to an IPP sentence. The government’s refusal to agree to the resentencing exercise, and its ‘nothing to see here reaction’, has been devastating for many IPP prisoners and their families.

The debate this Thursday, initiated by the Chair of the Justice Committee, Sir Bob Neill, will be an important opportunity for MPs to discuss the Committee’s report and put pressure on the government to act more decisively to end the unending nightmare for more than 3,000 prisoners and their families.

Speaking today, the Centre’s director Richard Garside, said,

With the departure of Dominic Raab as Justice Secretary, the government has the opportunity for a reset moment in its approach to the awful IPP sentence.

The Justice Committee produced a careful, cautious and considered report, making a series of modest but important recommendations that any government serious about justice and fairness should have no difficulty in accepting in full.

I very much hope that MPs will place maximum pressure on the government to show its willingness to right what many MPs and Peers recognise to be a dreadful injustice.