Ending ‘inhumane’ IPP sentences will help prisons crisis, more than 70-strong coalition says
MORE than 70 experts, campaigners and trade unionists called on Labour today to end the scandal of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences.
This type of open-ended jail term, branded “inhumane” by United Nations torture expert Alice Jill Edwards, was abolished in in 2012, but the decision was not retroactive, so thousands of people are still serving such sentences more than a decade later.
The coalition warned that many have been locked up indefinitely after being convicted of minor offences, highlighting the case of Ronnie Sinclair, a woman who served 15 years behind bars for smashing a flowerpot and ripping up a friend’s betting slips.
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Action for justice is needed as there are currently 3,000 prisoners behind bars under ‘Imprisonment for Public Protection,’ even though this type of sentence was abolished in 2012, argues KIM JOHNSON MP