Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences in England and Wales: processes of delegitimization and legislative abolition

• In Event: Indefinite preventive detention across penal cultures

Abstract

The IPP sentence was introduced by the Criminal Justice Act (2003), following mounting political concern about so-called ‘dangerous offenders’ whose crimes did not warrant life imprisonment. The sanction is a ‘pure’ form of indefinite preventive detention: not only do sentences have an indefinite point of release, they may last for the rest of a person’s life, effectively serving as an informal life sentence. IPPs were legislatively abolished in 2012 after widespread criticism. This paper will examine how this sanction was delegitimised through alliances between campaigners, politicians, practitioners and academics. Whilst there is a punitive penal culture in England and Wales, stoked by a dominant right-wing print media, there is also a strong campaigning sector, independent local and national journalism, and beneficiaries willing to fund campaigns. Debates have increasingly been successful in framing the IPP sentence in new ways. Those serving IPP are no longer ‘dangerous offenders’, but ‘damaged victims’; and those affected are not faceless ‘others’ or their stigmatised family members, but mothers or partners enduring unbearable pains. The paper will conclude by discussing whether there is here a seed of potential for an argument towards (cautious) broader penal policy change.

Author

• Harry Annison, University of Southampton