#imprisonment for public protection (IPP)

[thoughtlessarse]

In 2006, Martin Myers got in a scrape over a cigarette. He asked a young man if he had a spare fag. The man declined to give him one. Myers came from a well-known Traveller family. The man, Myers says, made a derogatory comment about Travellers, so Myers gave up the niceties. He threatened to punch him if he didn’t hand him a cigarette. The young man ran away. He then went to the police in Luton and told them what had happened. The police were familiar with Myers. He had previous convictions for dangerous driving, assault, theft and burglary. Myers was arrested, charged and convicted of attempted street robbery. On 8 March 2006, he was given a tariff – the minimum time he could serve – of 19 months and 27 days. Myers, 42, has now served 18 years in jail for the attempted robbery of that cigarette. He was given an indeterminate sentence, known as imprisonment for public protection (IPP). This meant that while he could be released after 19 months and 27 days, he could also be jailed for up to 99 years. IPP was first used as a sentence in England and Wales in 2005, having been introduced by Labour in 2003 to detain in prison people who posed a significant risk of causing harm to the public. It was a controversial sentence. Critics said that jailing people for what they could do, rather than what they had done, contradicted the basic principle of justice: that people are innocent until proven guilty. In September 2012, the European court of human rights ruled that detaining individuals serving IPPs beyond their tariff indefinitely “was arbitrary and therefore unlawful” if reasonable access to rehabilitation was not provided. On 3 December 2012, IPP was abolished. But while the sentence could no longer be handed out by judges, it wasn’t abolished for those already serving it. Last week, David Blunkett, who introduced the sentence as home secretary, told me: “What has happened with this sentence is the biggest regret I have in terms of the outcome of all the many things that I was involved in the eight years I was in government.” Today, more than 11 years after IPPs were banned and 16 years after his tariff ended, Myers is one of almost 3,000 people imprisoned in England and Wales still serving an indeterminate sentence – with no release date in sight.

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Labour saw Clinton did much the same thing in the US and said, “We're having that.” And like Clinton they now regret the introduction of such measures.

I've no doubt discrimination against travellers played a large part in the whole affair, from the man threatened right up to the judge who passed sentence.

[capitalism-is-parasitism]

Myers, 42, has now served 18 years in jail for the attempted robbery of that cigarette. He was given an indeterminate sentence, known as imprisonment for public protection (IPP). This meant that while he could be released after 19 months and 27 days, he could also be jailed for up to 99 years. IPP was first used as a sentence in England and Wales in 2005, having been introduced by Labour in 2003 to detain in prison people who posed a significant risk of causing harm to the public. It was a controversial sentence. Critics said that jailing people for what they could do, rather than what they had done, contradicted the basic principle of justice: that people are innocent until proven guilty. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/may/01/martin-myers-tried-and-failed-to-steal-a-cigarette-why-has-he-spent-18-years-in-prison-for-it

[scottishcommune]

In 2015, Nicol killed himself in prison. He was 37. It was only then that Mooney discovered he had been right all along. Nicol had a four-year tariff (the minimum amount of time he could serve in jail) and an indeterminate sentence, known as imprisonment for public protection. IPP is also called a 99-year sentence because people serving one can, technically, be jailed for 99 years. When they are released, it is on a 99-year licence, which means they can be recalled to prison at any time in their life for even minor breaches, such as being late for a probation appointment (although the Parole Board will consider whether to terminate the licence 10 years after first release)...

[novumtimes]

Man’s two decades in prison for stealing laptop

Bernadette Emerson Abdullahi Suleman was imprisoned in 2005 for robbery of a laptop A prisoner who has served almost five times his original sentence for a laptop robbery still has no prospect of being released. Abdullahi Suleman, 41, from Cardiff, is still in prison after being handed an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence in 2005. These were handed out between 2005 and 2012 to…

[qudachuk]

Exclusive: Campaigners say ‘imprisonment for public protection’ offenders are being sent back to jail in England and Wales ‘for no good reason’ The number of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) offenders who have been recalled to jail despite not...

[thefree-online]

Unfair jail sentences – one more example of demonising society’s ‘morally unfit’

Kenan Malik The IPP scandal should not be seen in isolation. It is all part of today’s politics by vilification David Blunkett acknowledged last week that it was the “biggest regret” of his political life. As home secretary under Tony Blair in 2001, Blunkett was the architect of the “imprisonment for public protection” scheme, or IPP. Under […] Unfair jail sentences – one more example of…

[fuckyeahanarchistposters]

UK: Fortnight of Action against IPP Sentences 9th – 23rd July 2017

As part of the 2017 Year of Resistance against IPP Sentences, Smash IPP have called for a Fortnight of Action this July 9th – 23rd 2007.

More than 3989 people are serving IPP (Imprisonment for Public Protection) sentences in British prisons. Five years since the sentence was legally abolished, thousands still languish in jails with no release date. Parole board delays, prison overcrowding, and sheer neglect is leading to unprecedented rates of prisoner suicides and self-harm. 80% are over tariff and desperate to be free. THIS FORTNIGHT IS FOR THEM.

The time is now to escalate and generate unrelenting pressure on the government, prison profiteers and the parole boards who are all complicit in ripping families apart, ruining lives and killing working class young people who have died as a result of the mental strain of being an IPP.

This fortnight of action is dedicated to Charlie Noakes, an IPP prisoner who died on the 23rd July 2016 as a result of prison neglect and the despair of this sentence. Let’s make this an amazing fortnight of action in honour of the life HMP stole.

What You Can Do

Smash IPP is asking people to organise actions in their area. Suggested actions may include:

* Noise demos at prisons where IPP prisoners are imprisoned * Days of action at local Probation Offices. Find your nearest office in the directory here. * Organising actions against HMPPS (Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service), the replacement to NOMS (National Offender Management Service) * Organising communication blockades against the above organisations integral to the prison service continuing this injustice * Demonstrating at the Houses of Parliament * Targeting the Justice Secretary who has the power to turn these sentences into determinate sentences and end this nightmare * Demonstrating and pressuring the Parole Board * IPP Prisoner letter writing events * Smash IPP fundraising events * Organising info nights, workshops & awareness raising events about this brutal sentence * Doing stalls at local prisons to connect with prisoner families * Demonstrating in your local town centre to raise awareness about IPPs * Banner drops

…. The options are endless!

Not connected to anyone locally? Get in touch! Smash IPP may be able to connect you with local contacts and prisoner families.

Know an IPP prisoner who would benefit from some solidarity actions as part of this campaign? Or would like to have letters from people showing support? Let us know!

Smash IPP can help with leaflets, stickers and other materials. We are also available to do talks and workshops about IPP if needed or can link you up with people that can.

Please contact us with your any of your publicly advertised plans so we can help promote them, otherwise don’t forget to send us your action reports.

Contact Us Email: info@smashipp.org.uk smashipp.noflag.org.uk

[seewithyoureyes]

James Ward, aged 22, was given a 10 month sentence for causing actual bodily harm to his Dad in a fight over a dog. 12 years later James is still in prison after being given a highly controversial Indefinite Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence (IPP) having set fire to the bed in his cell.

[hieronymuscrow]

The Imprisonment for Public Protection Scandal

The Western democracies have exhibited a clear slide into authoritarianism over the past twenty years. In the UK the start of this can be traced back to the policies of New Labour. There was a clear attempt to circumvent the rules and procedures that ensured people received a fair trial while placing decisions in the hands of bureaucrats. Attempts were made to limit access to juries, extend the amount of time a person could be held without charge and various pieces of legislation were introduced that made it easier to detain people into custody; prison populations soared as a result. There was an attempt to introduce legislation that would make it easier to detain people on mental health grounds and harder for them to be released, even when it was against the advice of their doctors. One of the most damaging episodes was the introduction of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP).

These sentences were introduced in 2005. They consisted of a tariff, a minimum sentence that the person had to serve in prison, after which it was up to the Parole Board to determine whether the person was suitable for release. They were supposedly intended for serious sexual and violent offences, to give the courts an option similar to a life sentence when dealing with the most serious crimes. They ended up being used for relatively minor offences, where people given tariffs of a few years or less were put on them. The result being that the Parole Board found it difficult to deal with the numbers.

To secure release the Parole Board needed to be convinced that the prisoner was no longer a danger to society. This in itself is problematic as it is assessing some notion of future crime: there is no way to determine what a person might do in the future and hence the concept results in inconsistent standards of justice. This was compounded by the lack of provision for the assessment procedures, and the fact that these assessment procedures had been developed in relationship to long term prisoners, so were not always suitable for people on short sentences who had committed less serious crimes. Suddenly the Parole Board were inundated with people on short tariffs who needed to be assessed. As a result prisoners found themselves stuck in a legal limbo where they were unable to secure release, even after they had served not only the minimum sentence but the maximum for the crime they had been convicted of. The arbitrary nature of the punishment would have a deleterious effect on prisoners well-being, with suicides and self-harm being prevalent among IPP prisoners. The decline in their mental health would end up working against them in Parole Board hearings. The result was that people who were given minimum sentences of a year or two spent 15 years and more in jail. On release these prisoners can be on life-long licence, where they can be recalled to prison for breaching conditions imposed by the Parole Board. These conditions can be trivial and counterproductive as they stop the person reintegrating into society.

As a result of increasing numbers of people taking action through the courts on human rights grounds, IPP sentences were abolished in 2012, but not retrospectively. As a result there are still people in prison who have served many multiples of their sentence. The result has been devastating for families who have no way of knowing when their loved ones will be home. Some women on IPP, who were given short sentences, have lost custody of their children as a result of being incarcerated for many years. These factors play a major role in reintegrating people back into society after they have become effectively institutionalised. The result being that increasing numbers of IPP prisoners who had secured release are now being recalled to prison for breaching their licence conditions.

[adventuresinsocialpolicy]

A fascinating two part radio programme about the Parole Board who decide if prisoners should be released on license (or in some cases, with  Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences, at all). It follows two men’s cases, listening in on the evidence and the board’s discussion.

[nemnuoc]

Top shirts on Rabbitstee on 2020/02/04

Top shirts on Rabbitstee on 2020/02/04

If it is terror related crimes, they should come with no release date! IPP – imprisonment for public protection. Why should they be let back out on any street of the Top shirts on Rabbitstee on 2020/02/04!!!Michele Hollister ipp got removed years ago. Since judges was handing them out like goodies for stupid things.Merv Paul it should be put back in place for terror related offences. They do not…

[bigyack-com]

London knife attacker Usman Khan, a terror convict who spent late teens in Pakistan - world news

The London Bridge attacker who killed two persons in Black Friday attack was a British citizen born in the UK. He was a terror convict who had been out on parole and targeted a gathering where students and other former convicts had assembled.According to The Telegraph, Khan left school with no qualifications after spending part of his late teens in Pakistan, where he lived with his mother when she became ill.On his return to the UK, he started preaching extremism on the Internet and attracted a significant following, Dawn News quoted The Telegraph report. In January 2012, Khan pleaded guilty to engaging in preparation for acts of terrorism violating the UK’s Terrorism Act 2006. Khan was among nine men charged with conspiracy to bomb high-profile London targets in the run-up to Christmas in 2010. At the time, the men were described as an Al Qaeda-inspired group that wanted to send mail bombs to various targets and launch a “Mumbai-style” atrocity. At that time of his arrest, Khan lived in Stoke-on-Trent, a city in central England.A hand-written target list, found at that time at one of the defendant’s homes, listed the names and addresses of then London Mayor and current British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the American Embassy and the Stock Exchange. The British police counter-terror operation which led to their arrests was the biggest of 2010, the Dawn report said.Khan was sentenced to detention for public protection with a minimum custodial term of eight years -- a sentenced designed by UK authorities to protect the public from serious offenders whose crimes did not merit a life sentence.Offenders sentenced to an IPP are set a minimum term which they must spend in prison. After they have completed their tariff they can apply to a parole board for release. The Parole Board releases an offender only if it is satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public for the convict to be confined. If offenders are given parole they will be on supervised licence for at least 10 years.The judge who had examined the 2010 bomb case sentencing appeals of Khan and the other convicts in 2013 had said: “They wished to support and commit acts of terrorism in furtherance of their religious beliefs. They came to the attention of the security services who monitored them using covert surveillance techniques and devices and were able to effect their arrest prior to advanced steps having been taken to implement their plans.”He also noted that although they were from different parts of the country (Stoke, Cardiff and London), the groups managed to meet together.The judge had also said that the Stoke defendants, which included Khan, were recorded discussing terror attacks overseas. On December 15, 2010, Khan had been monitored by UK authorities in conversation about how to construct a pipe bomb from a recipe referred to in an Al Qaeda publication.Authorities also heard Khan seeking to radicalise another male and making clear his intentions to travel abroad to a training camp which outwardly appeared to be a madrassah, the Dawn report said. The Stoke group, which included Khan, were to fund the camp and recruit men for it. The court noted that “Khan expected only victory, martyrdom or imprisonment”. Source link Read the full article

[leftpress]

Long-term radical prisoner John Bowden denied parole because of his anti-authoritarian views and contact with Anarchist Black Cross groups (UK)

admin | 325 | July 21st 2017

There is currently a massive population of “post-tariff” life sentence prisoners over-crowding British Prisons. Lifers who remain detained long beyond the time originally recommended by the judiciary or secretary of state, which includes prisoners sentenced under the IPP (‘Imprisonment for Public Protection’) Law. Although this law has been scrapped, it has left a legacy of thousands of prisoners still languishing in jail. Britain has more life sentenced prisoners than the whole of Europe combined, a consequence of a “lock em up and throw away the key” culture and mentality that pervades the bourgeois judiciary and justice apparatus, as well as a Parole Board that exists just to legitimise what is in reality the unlawful detention of thousands of prisoners. “Preventative Detention” was created by the Nazi Party in Germany in 1939 to “cleanse” society of anti-social elements and Britain is a zealous inheritor of that instrument of repression, while British prisons are now little m...

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[ianchisnall]

Making weak laws is the easy part - ex-Ministers must help clear up the mess they created On Sunday night I was involved in a twitter debate organised by a group whose own twitter account is @PrisonStorm .

[global-news-station]

It was a snippet of conversation, along with other intelligence about a plot to bomb the London Stock Exchange, that prompted British police to arrest Khan – then 19 years old – and a group of older men on Dec. 20, 2010.

Sentenced to a minimum of eight years in prison in 2012 with a requirement that the parole board assess his danger to the public before release, he was set free in December 2018 – without a parole board assessment.

On Friday, he strapped on a fake suicide vest, armed himself with large kitchen knives and went on the rampage at a conference on prisoner rehabilitation beside London Bridge.

Confronted by bystanders, including a Polish man brandishing a narwhal tusk he had grabbed from the wall of Fishmongers’ Hall, Khan was wrestled to the ground. Three armed police officers surrounded him. They fired twice. He was dead.

“This individual was known to authorities,” said Britain’s top counter terrorism officer, Assistant Police Commissioner Neil Basu. “A key line of enquiry now is to establish how he came to carry out this attack.”

It is so far unclear why Khan, now 28, began his rampage on London Bridge – the scene of another deadly attack before the 2017 election. Then, three militants drove a van into pedestrians before stabbing people in the surrounding area, killing eight and injuring at least 48.

Khan was part of a group of militants from the English city of Stoke which forged close links with militants from London and the Welsh capital Cardiff.

The London and Welsh parts of the conspiracy had ambitions to place a bomb in a toilet at the London Stock Exchange.

While Khan knew and supported the bomb plans, and had discussed bombing local pubs, he and his Stoke group had hatched a potentially more sinister plan.

“The Stoke group was, and was considered to be, pre-eminent,” British judge Alan Wilkie said when he sentenced Khan in 2012. “They regarded themselves as more serious militant than the others.”

When sentencing Khan in 2012, Wilkie said that he was so dangerous that he was imposing a so-called imprisonment for public protection (IPP) indeterminate sentence of eight years.

After Khan appealed his sentence, appeal court judges in 2013 quashed the indeterminate period of incarceration and he was given a determinate sentence of 16 years – meaning he could be released after serving half of his term.

Court of Appeal judges said at the time that the Parole Board should consider whether those convicted were safe enough to be released. But the Parole Board said on Saturday that it had not been involved in deciding Khan’s release.

“The Parole Board can confirm it had no involvement with the release of the individual identified as the attacker,” the board said, adding that Khan “appears to have been released automatically on licence (as required by law), without ever being referred to the Board.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, seeking re-election on Dec. 12, said it was important to enforce terrorism-related sentences.

“It does not make sense for us, as a society, to be putting people convicted of terrorist offences, serious violent offences, out on early release,” he said on Saturday after visiting the scene of the attack.

The post Usman Khan: The 28-year-old who launched London Bridge attack appeared first on ARY NEWS.

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