Prisoners: Indeterminate Sentences

Lord Bishop of Lichfield Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Lichfield]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, for his initiative and to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, for their very helpful introductions.

As a general principle, it is accepted in this country that people should be sent to prison because they have been convicted of an offence rather than because of the risk that they will offend. Indeterminate tariffs are even now available for the most serious offences, in the form of life sentences, and extended sentences now provide a way to manage and contain risk in relation to those convicted of serious violent and sexual offences which do not call for a life sentence.

As we have heard, the IPP sentences were brought in with the intention of applying them to just a few hundred prisoners. Things went wrong, and, after some attempts to deal with their unintended effects, they were abolished. It is neither here nor there that this chain of events spread across successive Governments. A number of options were tried: some worked, and this one did not. Even though IPP has now been abolished, approximately 5,500 IPP prisoners remain within the system, nearly two-thirds of them past their tariff. At the current release rate of about 400 a year, it could take nine years to clear the backlog.

I spent some time recently with an intelligent and engaging Somali prisoner who has taught himself near perfect English. This man was given an 18-month tariff, but last Christmas was his ninth in prison. What an injustice, and what a huge expense. One prison officer spoke to me of,

“a game of tag between the Immigration Services and the Parole Board which has produced deadlock for years”.

Two significant factors cause delay in release when the tariff has been served: programmes and process. Up to now the dependence on a particular kind of offending behaviour programme, on cognitive behavioural principles, as an important key to reducing risk, has caused quite a lot of problems—in particular, the shortage of supply of such courses, the complicated transport system between centres, and the exclusion criteria, which mean that those without certain educational skills or attainments, and some with learning difficulties or mental health problems, cannot enrol on these courses. Effective as the programmes doubtless are, for those eligible for them, as a criterion of reduction in risk they are only a proxy for a more complex and dynamic process of learning and change. A large body of recent research on desistance from crime supports the view that reduction in risk is a much broader process, engaging the whole person and their understanding of their own life and values, than has sometimes been thought. Indeed, mainstream research has shown that faith can be a significant factor for many.

Secondly, on the process for determining how far risk has been reduced, the Parole Board is under enormous pressure, which has grown greatly following a recent judgment requiring oral hearings in many more cases than before. I welcome the sensible suggestion made by the Prison Reform Trust that the decision on a move to open prison conditions should be made by the prison governor, as already happens with those on determinate sentences, rather than the Parole Board. If that is not done, then there is a strong case for reinstating the recently removed right to legal aid for IPP prisoners in relation to their recategorisation decisions.

The challenges that remain from the IPP experiment are obviously complex. Many of these prisoners have committed crimes which have victims, and the risk of further offending is not to be taken lightly. Many other well informed suggestions have been made towards resolving these issues, but if we attend to the two elements which I have mentioned—the programmes and the process—I believe that we shall be moving in the right direction towards a just and safe resolution of these difficulties. It is surprising that a manifest injustice like this has not attracted more attention.