Sentencing blow for govt in court
Tuesday, 31 Jul 2007 12:36
The government has said it will review indeterminate sentences
The government's difficulties in handling the country's rising prisoner population were exacerbated today by a court ruling against its indeterminate sentences.
The court of appeal has ruled in favour of two inmates serving the indeterminate sentences for public protection (IPP sentences) after branding them as "arbitrary, unreasonable and unlawful".
In its ruling the court accepted the prisoners' claims that the government was breaching their human rights by detaining them in jails with no scope to assess their suitability to be released.
The two inmates are serving IPP sentences with recommended minimum terms, but their prisons do not offer courses that would enable the parole board to assess whether they still faced a danger to their public once their tariffs had expired.
"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," said Lord Justice Laws and Mr Justice Mitting.
"It is therefore unlawful."
The judges went on to say that justice secretary Jack Straw had "acted unlawfully by failing to provide for measures to enable prisoners serving IPP sentences to demonstrate to the parole board, by the end of their minimum term, that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public for them to be confined".
Introduced by the then home secretary David Blunkett two years ago primarily for violent sex offenders, an urgent review of IPP sentences was ordered by Mr Straw last week.
The sentences have already been branded "unjust and unsustainable" by the Prison Reform Trust (PRT).
Almost 3,000 IPPs have been handed down by judges so far and this number is expected to rise by 12,000, putting pressure on already overcrowded prisons, the lobby group claimed.
Prisons minister David Hanson has already accepted that "there are some issues that need to be addressed [on IPP sentences]".
But speaking to BBC2's Newsnight yesterday he countered: "The Ministry of Justice was formed some 12 weeks ago. We have taken the view to look at a whole range of issues in terms of the way prisons operate, not least of which has been the pressures on prison populations.
"What we want to examine is how IPPs are operational. They have been operational for some three years and it is important we look at them. I recognise there are some pressures on the system about the type of support individuals can get and we need to look at those."
Speaking on the same programme, Anne Owers, the chief inspector of prisons, criticised the way in which the indeterminate sentences were introduced.
"There was no plan about how the prison system, already overcrowded, already under stress, was going to deal with them," she explained.
"An indeterminate sentence for public protection is a very expensive piece of kit. It requires prisons to do a lot with the person whilst they are there and it will require the probation service to supervise for at least ten years when they are out."