A former Lord Chief Justice has issued a powerful call to end what he describes as a "stain" on the British justice system, as thousands remain imprisoned under a sentence abolished over a decade ago.
The Enduring Injustice of IPP Sentences
Between 2005 and 2012, more than 6,000 people were given Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences. This controversial form of preventive detention was imposed for a wide range of crimes, even non-serious ones, if a judge deemed the offender "dangerous". Judges set a minimum term, known as a tariff, which was often very short. Despite the scheme being abolished in 2012 after being widely condemned, its legacy continues to haunt the prison system.
Official figures reveal that as of the end of September 2025, a staggering 2,422 individuals were still under IPP sentences. This includes 946 who have never been released, 1,476 who were released but later recalled to prison, and over 200 detained in mental hospitals.
Decades Beyond a Fair Sentence
The disproportionality in some cases is shocking. The tariff was meant to reflect the seriousness of the original crime, yet many have served terms vastly exceeding it.
- One person received a nine-month tariff and has now served 20 years.
- Another, given a 330-day tariff, has served 17 years.
- An individual with a six-month tariff has been incarcerated for 16 and a half years.
- Someone with a tariff of three years and five months has now served 20 years.
The sentence was also imposed on children, with more than 20 of those individuals still imprisoned decades later.
A Flawed Action Plan and a Refusal to Act
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the former Lord Chief Justice, argues that the government's ongoing refusal to rectify this injustice is increasingly indefensible. He highlights that while the last government reduced licence periods for those released, nothing has been done to help those never released at all.
Instead, ministers persist with a flawed IPP action plan – now in its 10th year – which is demonstrably failing. An expert group convened by the Howard League for Penal Reform proposed a key change: requiring the Parole Board to set a release date within a two-year window for IPP prisoners. Lord Thomas tabled an amendment to the current Sentencing Bill to enact this, but the government rejected it, claiming it would risk public safety.
Lord Thomas dismantles this argument with five key points:
- The IPP sentence is universally acknowledged as wrong in principle.
- People who committed identical offences before 2005 or after 2012 were and are released, exposing the discrimination against the IPP group.
- Psychiatric evidence shows indefinite detention for non-serious crimes causes profound harm, with IPP prisoners accounting for over 3,000 self-harm incidents annually and alarmingly high suicide rates.
- With prisons in a severe capacity crisis, granting justice to IPP prisoners could free up around 2,500 prison places.
- A fundamental misunderstanding persists in the Ministry of Justice, which wrongly categorises IPP prisoners as high-risk offenders akin to lifers, when the short tariffs prove otherwise.
Lord Thomas concludes by invoking Winston Churchill's test of civilisation through the treatment of criminals. He urges that 2026 must be the year Britain finally passes this test and removes the enduring stain of IPP from its world-renowned justice system.
