#ippsentence

We’re over half way through January but the Christmas tree and decorations are still up in Shirley’s council house in Adamsdown. Whilst most of us subscribe to superstition and take down our decorations on the Twelfth Night of Christmas, Shirley has more to worry about, than an old custom provoking fear. “Every year, I think to myself, Shaun will be home by next Christmas… But the Christmases just keep going by, one after an other, and the stress gets worse and worse, then the illnesses get worse and worse,” she says. Shirley doesn’t want to take down her Christmas decorations, not yet anyway. There’s only one thing she wants - for her son to be out of jail, and given the chance to put his life back on track. Since 2005 Shaun Lloyd has been serving an IPP sentence for robbery. He was sentenced at the age of 18 and has spent the best part of his adult life in a cell, but neither Shaun nor his family realised what the sentence, holding a five-year tariff, meant when it was given. “Because it was a new sentence, we didn’t know what he was facing. I don’t think the judges even knew the implications of this sentence when they gave it to him. It’s an inhumane and unjust sentence,” says Shirley. The IPP or “Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection” is similar to a life sentence. The sentence was only implemented in 2005, and the aim was to create a sentence that would allow for the indefinite imprisonment of offenders deemed dangerous, but whose offence was not serious enough to get a life sentence. With an IPP, offenders receive a minimum punishment period, or tariff, to be served in custody. After this they can be released, but only after persuading the parole board they no longer represent a serious risk to the public. The problem is, the parole board doesn’t like to take risks and prisoners are simply not being let out, despite the serious offending rate of released prisoners remaining stable at 1-2% for many years. Shaun committed the robbery he was sentenced for, under the influence of alcohol and drugs, whilst suffering addiction. Since being in jail he has completed a number of different substance abuse awareness courses, and passed every single drug and alcohol test he’s taken inside. His mother says Shaun has vowed never to touch alcohol again, and has met a girl whilst on open conditions, which he hopes he can build a future with. The Prison Reform Trust has described the IPP sentence as, “one of the least carefully planned and implemented pieces of legislation in the history of British sentencing”, so why hasn’t it been abolished yet? Of the total 6,550 IPP prisoners, over half have passed their tariff dates, yet remain in jail. Each prisoner costs the taxpayer over £40,000 a year. The post-tariff prisoners are certainly a factor in our overcrowded prisons, which cost over £300million in total. MP Kenneth Clark has been campaigning for the abolishment of the IPP sentence, and the government are talking about the possibility of a reform; however the web is riddled with blogs, comments and campaigns by hundreds of mothers and wives desperate to know when their men will be home. And just as we all know, time is something we can never get back. “When I put myself in his shoes, it really hurts me. I just imagine him there, sat in his cell, thinking when am I ever gunna breathe fresh air? When am I gunna see my family again? When am I going to have a life? When are they gunna give my life back to me?” Shirley spends her days worrying about Shaun, and suffers from physical and mental illnesses because of the severe stress brought on by the uncertainty surrounding her son’s sentence. Clinical psychologist Robin Owen comments on IPP sentences, “It’s likely to be a very stressful experience and very hard to tolerate, for both prisoners and their families. This emotional distress could manifest itself in just about any conceivable manner, anything from psychosis to depression to suicidal behaviour.” He says, “One advantage of the IPP sentence is that it is a substantial and aversive deterrent, which would be likely to discourage persistent serious offending, and thereby helping the offender avoid re offending and giving them the opportunity to get on with their lives.”  Robin says that proof of rehabilitation is only possible in hindsight, and the IPP should only be used in very serious cases, where offenders cause serious emotional trauma to victims, such as in rape cases. “Arguably a more helpful way to assist criminals to avoid committing crimes again would be to develop an individuated formulation. This would take into account the individual variables, which were integral to precipitating criminal behaviour in that individual.” Shaun’s mother believes that had he committed the same crime these days, he would have been given a five year sentence with a date at the end. She says, “I don’t condone what Shaun’s done, Shaun did deserve to go to prison for five years. But the system would be better to Shaun, and to society, if they’d let him out after five years, and let him slowly get rehabilitated back into normal life and show he can work on the outside as well as on the inside.” Whilst in prison Shaun has completed a number of courses, including health & safety, first aid, maths, literacy, anger management and a Level 2 NVQ. When taking into consideration the fact that those on ordinary prison sentences, can reduce their sentences by 50% if they show good behaviour, the decisions of the justice system seem inconsistent and unfair. When we look at young men like Shaun, vital years of his youth are being taken away just because there isn’t anyone whose sure what’s going on with IPP prisoners. “They get courses thrown at them, they don’t get a parole hearing on time because there’s not enough parole boards to go around, and it’s just a nightmare. It’s just hard for ‘em to prove that they’re safe to be let out into the community again. It’s just one big hard fight.” These stories of injustice are spreading rapidly down groups of prisoners, their families and the communities they come from. The legitimacy of the system is eroding in their eyes. Shirley and her son have a long way to go yet, “There’s just no light at the end of the tunnel” she says, as her eyes and her head sink.