Sentencing review to ease prisons overcrowding will exclude indefinite jail terms

“Morally wrong” indefinite jail terms which have left thousands languishing with no release date have been excluded from the government’s flagship review to tackle prison overcrowding.

- AMY-CLARE MARTIN

Campaigners have hit out at the news that the scandal of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences will not be addressed under a “once in a generation” independent review of sentencing, which is expected to look at “tough alternatives to custody” in a bid to bring prisons back from the brink of collapse.

The news comes just days after Britain’s former top judge backed The Independent’s campaign for IPP prisoners to have their “inherently unfair” sentences reviewed.

Details of the review, led by former justice secretary David Gauke, were announced as a further 1,100 prisoners sentenced to five years or more are set to walk free today after serving just 40 per cent of their jail terms under emergency measures to free up cells.

Shirley Debono, founder of campaign group IPP Committee in Action, said: “There are IPP prisoners inside now that have committed less serious offences than those they are releasing under this new scheme [SDS40, a reduction in the time served in prison for certain people currently serving standard determinate sentences from 50 per cent of their sentence to 40 per cent] that they have brought out. I just think it’s not fair.”