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Ourladyoftheassumptionparish

Part – Newstatenabenn

IPP: prisoners serving endless prison sentences
patheur

IPP: prisoners serving endless prison sentences

In July 2000, eight-year-old Sarah Payne was murdered by Roy Whiting, a convicted pedophile who had been released early from a four-year sentence for kidnapping and assaulting a girl. The resulting outcry was one of the reasons why New Labour, keen to be “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, decided to devise a new type of custodial sentence for dangerous criminals who were not eligible for a sentence. life.

The “sentence of prison for public protection” (IPP) introduced under the Criminal Justice Act 2003; would be awarded to people convicted of one of 96 serious violent or sexual offenses (carrying a maximum sentence of ten years or more) if the court deemed the offender to be a threat to the public. These people would serve a minimum period of detention, the “tariff”, before being eligible for parole. If the Parole Board decided they no longer posed a risk, the offender would be released on licence. But, in practice, they could be detained indefinitely; and even when released on license, they could be recalled to prison.