Continued detention of IPP prisoners is unfair and inhumane, reports independent prison monitors

For a number of years, the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) at HMP Send has expressed concern over the injustice of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences. In its annual report for 2023-24 (published today, 27 September 2024), the Board highlights one IPP prisoner who has served 14 years over their original tariff of two and a half years. The Board believes that the continued detention, and repeated recalls of IPP prisoners for what the Board considers to be relatively small breaches of licence conditions, is both unfair and inhumane.

The Board also finds that:

• There has been no progress in the delivery of in-cell technology at HMP Send and there is no evidence of plans to change this. The Board believes that the prison is failing to prepare prisoners serving long sentences for successful resettlement in a digital society.
• The shortage of offender managers, both in the prison and community, has had a damaging effect on prisoners and impacted on progression and release planning.

More positively, the Board reports that:

• The 64 new cells on the incentivised substance free living wings at HMP Send were very popular with the prisoners, providing a rehabilitative environment.
• Levels of self-harm reduced in the reporting year by almost half.
• Prison management and staff were observed making a great effort to try and ensure the safety of prisoners.

IMB Send Chair, Philippa Helme, said:

“To continue to detain people many years beyond the tariff set by courts, and with no release date in sight, is shameful. The IPP prisoners at Send are not people who have committed the worst of crimes, or who obviously present a grave and continuing threat to society, but individuals who seem to have got stuck in the system. It is time to stop this injustice.”