It soon became clear that the IPP sentences were a poor substitute for a conventional system of stiff sentencing and judicious parole; adding an indefinite – ie unlimited – period of custody to sometimes brief custodial sentences could and has led to grotesque results.
As The Independent reveals today, Dr Edwards finds that the treatment of a certain class of prisoners, held under an inherently unjust and anachronistic regime of indefinite detention, probably amounts to “arbitrary detention” by the UK, “psychological torture” and, “very likely”, a breach of their human rights.
One immediate problem seems to be a reluctance on the part of ministers to progress IPP cases to open prisons, with day release, even when the Parole Board recommends it.
At a time when the prisons have grown so short of cells that quite serious offenders are being released early – much to the disgust of their victims and the wider public – the occultation of space by IPP inmates is indefensible, on practical as well as moral grounds.
Lord Timpson, appointed as a minister with the change of government, not only has expertise in this field, he has demonstrated the much-needed empathy and zeal to aid the most vulnerable prisoners – and if he helps right this ugly wrong, may even reach heroic, Wilberforcian heights.
