The justice secretary says he is outraged that terrorists and child sex abusers are released halfway through their sentences regardless of whether they have changed their attitudes or behaviour. We should all be outraged with him. It is outrageous too, that, until this government abolished it in 2012, there was a much tougher sentence available for very serious offenders.
Indeterminate sentences for public protection were introduced by the last Labour government and allowed a prisoner to be released only when they could prove they were no longer a risk to society. If a dangerous offender was still a serious risk to the public at the end of their sentence he or she would be kept in prison so that more rehabilitative work could be done. This government abolished these cautious sentences with public protection at their heart within two years of coming to office. In an attempt to make up for this mistake they have cobbled together ‘two strikes and you’re out’, extended sentences for some violent offenders but not all, and now parole hearings that may or may not mean some offenders have to serve a bit more of their sentence in custody. All in all, the government has been playing catch-up ever since they abolished IPPs.
It is true that indeterminate sentences needed reform. They were used far too widely, but they remain the best option for the most dangerous and prolific offenders who have destroyed lives and exhausted communities. It’s still the case that by December 2013 there were over 5,000 offenders in prison without knowing when they would be released. Many might have been safe to release if they could have had access to the right treatments or courses. But instead of making these sentences even more effective and keeping the power to protect the public, the government scrapped them, depriving courts of an equivalent public protection option.
On this government’s watch, the chances of being rehabilitated in prison are lower than ever. The government has closed 17 local prisons, losing 5,000 places in the last year alone and crowding those left to bursting point. There is headroom of less than one per cent in prisons across England and Wales. Promises of no more time being spent idly in cells have come to nothing. Prisoners spend more than half of each day locked in their cells with nothing to do. The amount of time prisoners spend in work or purposeful activity has not improved either. Some larger prisons, such as Wormwood Scrubs, report an average as low as only 16 hours per week spent in useful activity. The situation is so bad the government has decided not to collect this information any more. The secretary of state’s vision of the future for prisons is G4S-run HMP Oakwood, but this has turned into an embarrassment. Inmates have managed to stage two rooftop protests and a riot. Most concerning of all, figures released last week show that serious assaults on prison staff across the country in 2013 rose to their highest recorded level.
Our prisons have always been challenging places to work. Keeping the public safe at the same time as changing attitudes and behaviour of those who have harmed others is not easy. Tinkering with sentencing policy is no substitute for abolishing IPPs, which protected the public. They need to actively manage and demand the best from prisons. Prison governors should be made accountable for reoffending and judges must have the tools they need to make sure the most dangerous and violent individuals are not released until it is safe to do so.
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Jenny Chapman MP is shadow minister for prisons and probation. She tweets @JennyChapman
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