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Peers ponder way out of IPP impasse
RICHARD GARSIDE explains why Labour needs to summon the spirit of ’45 and back the Attlee amendment on resentencing
A prison block [Matthew Ansley / Creative Commons]

THERE is widespread agreement across the main political parties and many legal experts that imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences need wholesale reform.

The life sentence-like IPP was imposed on thousands of people between 2005 and 2012. Abolished in 2012, but not retrospectively, almost 3,000 people remain languishing in prison, sometimes for years after the term set by the court.

Compared with the big challenges any government faces, this is a simple problem to fix. And while Conservative ministers and their Labour shadows agree that something must be done, Parliament remains deadlocked on the solution.

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