WIREDGOV

Around 1,800 rehabilitated offenders still under indefinite probation oversight for abolished Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences, years after completing their prison terms, will have this supervision lifted today (1 November 2024).

Reforms mean IPP offenders who were released from custody at least 5 years ago but not sent back to prison in the last 2 years will have their licences automatically terminated.

IPP sentences were introduced in 2005 but abolished in 2012 as they were used inconsistently and more broadly than anticipated.

Offenders on these indefinite sentences have had to wait at least 10 years after their initial release for the Parole Board to consider terminating their licence. With no guarantee that their sentence would end, they could be subject to supervision for their whole lives.

Further changes, effective from 1 February 2025, will cut the eligibility period for the Parole Board to consider ending licences from 10 years after first release to 3. This will make an additional 600 former offenders eligible to have their licenses ended.

Minister for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending, Lord Timpson said:

It was absolutely right that the IPP sentence was abolished. It has left many ex-offenders subject to indefinite probation supervision long after turning their backs on crime.  

IPP offenders who have served their time in prison and lived safely in the community for years should not be subjected to a lifetime licence and today we have taken a significant step in addressing this.

A former offender expressed relief that their licence has finally ended. Sentenced in 2006 to 15 months and released in 2007, they have not been recalled since but have lived with the restrictions of their licence conditions and uncertainty about their future.

The ex-offender said:

I am really happy that this order has ended, I have worked really hard to get myself together and worked with all agencies in order to do this. I am hopeful for the future.

Since 2012, the IPP prison population has reduced by over 50 per cent anyone still in prison serving an IPP sentenced but deemed still a risk to the public will remain there until the Parole Board recommends their release.

This will make sure we balance important public protections, with the need to move offenders who have turned their lives around out of prison and off licence.  

Note to editors

Those who were sentenced aged under 18 can have their licences terminated 4 years following their first release, with the same provision that they must not have been recalled in the last 2 years.