Parliamentary committee says IPP sentences are "irredeemably flawed" and demands change

A controversial form of sentencing which has left thousands behind bars for more than a decade for crimes which would normally carry a much lower tariff is "irredeemably flawed", a report says today. The Justice Committee has called on the Government to re-sentence all prisoners subject to IPP sentences.

In a report published today, the Committee finds that the current regime for managing IPP prisoners is inadequate in supporting their specific needs and calls for swift improvement in the quality of support they are given.

Indeterminate Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences were introduced to prevent serious offenders being released when still a danger to the public by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett, in 2005. Despite being scrapped in 2012, nearly 3,000 people remain in prison having been given an IPP sentence. In some cases, individuals have been imprisoned a decade beyond the tariff for their original sentence which could be as low as two years or less.

IPPs were abolished on the back of a European Court ruling that they breached human rights - on the grounds that prisons had failed to provide inmates access to the rehabilitation courses required to demonstrate to the Parole Board that they were safe to be released.

But the abolition wasn't retrospective, so today, even though more and more are being released, there remain 2,926 still locked up on IPP sentences.

Under the IPP sentencing system, release is based on successful rehabilitation and prisoners no longer being deemed a risk to the general public. However, the Committee has found that inadequate provision of support services inside and outside of prison has led to a ‘recall merry-go-round’, with almost half of prisoners currently serving an