THE scandal of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) is “a long way from being resolved,” prison reformers said today, as thousands of people remain incarcerated under the scrapped sentence.

IPP sentences were introduced in 2005 to prevent serious offenders who did not warrant a life sentence from being released for public safety.

Despite being scrapped in 2012, with the Ministry of Justice describing them as “unjust and long-served,” nearly 3,000 criminals remain behind bars under the sentence.