Imprisoned indefinitely for stealing a phone is injustice

It seems hard to believe, but there are still 2,400 people in our overcrowded prisons serving indefinite sentences, having originally been jailed for crimes such as theft — all under legislation repealed in 2012 because it was so obviously flawed.

Sentences of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) were introduced by the last Labour government to deal with offenders whose crimes did not warrant a life sentence but who were considered to pose a danger to the public. They were intended by David Blunkett, then home secretary, to be used only in a small number of exceptional cases where the risk of further serious offending was high, according to The Independent.

Offenders sentenced under IPP must satisfy the Parole Board that they are no longer a danger to the public. Even then, if they are released, they can be recalled at any time for breaching their licence — plunging them back into the same Kafkaesque cycle. The law broke a fundamental principle of justice: that people should be imprisoned for what they have done, not for what they might do. IPP sentences were handed down far more frequently than Lord Blunkett ever intended, and he now regards the policy as the worst mistake of his time in government.

The law was scrapped 14 years ago — because it was so manifestly unjust — but not for those already serving such sentences, of whom there are now still more than 2,400. Some of them have now been in jail for 19 years, and in some cases they were originally locked up for stealing a mobile phone or a laptop. Before he became part of the legal establishment as director of public prosecutions, Sir Keir Starmer, the human rights lawyer and activist, would almost certainly have joined The Independent’s campaign to put right this injustice.

He would not have been alone. Even many figures within the legal establishment are appalled by the government’s refusal to re-sentence these prisoners and treat them on the same basis as all other offenders. Several former judges have expressed deep regret at having passed IPP sentences at all. John Thomas, the former lord chief justice, writes in The Independent: “The IPP sentence is now accepted to have been wrong in principle by absolutely everyone. How, therefore, can we as a nation justly continue to imprison people under such a sentence?”

Lord Thomas has also warned of the human cost. “Psychiatric evidence is clear,” he writes, “that if we lock someone up for an indefinite time for an offence that is not that serious, we are likely to do them damage.” That damage is already visible. As we reported recently, the 2,400 IPP prisoners include 233 people transferred to secure mental health units, in many cases because the hopeless, open-ended nature of their sentences has traumatised them.

We have repeatedly called on Sir Keir, David Lammy, the justice secretary, and James Timpson, the prisons minister, to have the courage to do the right thing — just as we called on their Conservative predecessors to do the same. We recognise the political risk of releasing someone who might go on to commit a terrible crime. But that risk already exists. The government has taken it with its early-release scheme, and it exists with every prisoner once they have served the sentence.

Mr Lammy himself acknowledged this reality when, as shadow justice secretary five years ago, he wrote: “It is now painfully clear that the IPP sentence was far too broad, and many low-risk offenders are serving IPP sentences today for committing minor offences in the past.” It cannot be right to continue treating these prisoners differently. As Lord Thomas rightly observes: “If we can do justice in the terrible cases of the Post Office and the infected blood scandal, we can do it here.”