{"id":696388,"date":"2026-01-14T23:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/696388\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T23:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:18:10","slug":"un-expert-urges-judicial-reconsideration-of-protection-sentences-in-england-and-wales-jurist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/696388\/","title":{"rendered":"UN expert urges judicial reconsideration of protection sentences in England and Wales – JURIST"},"content":{"rendered":"

A UN expert on Monday commended<\/a> the new proposals addressing the \u201clongstanding crisis of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences in England and Wales,\u201d urging judicial reconsideration of the mechanism.<\/p>\n

Alice Jill Edwards, the special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, noted the UK House of Lords\u2019 proposals for the current or former justices to review cases of over 2,500 individuals who remain in prison under abolished IPP terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cA reconsideration exercise led by experienced judges is a pragmatic compromise that could pave the way toward individualised and just outcomes for those affected,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cIn its original form, the IPP scheme was intended to protect the public, but in practice it has left thousands of individuals detained indefinitely \u2014 often far beyond their tariff \u2014 without meaningful prospects for release.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edwards further emphasized that the remaining prisoners with serious mental illness<\/a> should receive appropriate mental health services. Moreover, the expert said that the reconsideration process must include robust mental health pathways in line with fundamental human rights standards and the prohibition against torture and other degrading punishment.<\/p>\n

The UK government first introduced<\/a> IPP sentences in 2005 and abolished them in 2012. As the abolition applies prospectively, many prisoners remain under indeterminate detention. The law allowed courts to impose an indeterminate sentence on offenders considered dangerous, and whose offence did not warrant a life sentence.<\/p>\n

This type of sentence differed from life imprisonment<\/a>, as the law required courts to set a minimum sentencing period (tariff). The Parole Board may decide to release the offender on licence at the end of the tariff. The licence allows the probation service to recall the offender to prison if necessary.<\/p>\n

The abolition followed the European Court of Human Rights\u2019 ruling<\/a> that indeterminate prison sentences violated Article 5(1) of the European Convention of Human Rights<\/a>, which guarantees the right to liberty and security.<\/p>\n

In 2022, the Justice Committee found<\/a> that IPP sentences were \u201cirredeemably flawed,\u201d causing \u201cacute harm to those subject to them, with the prospect of serving a sentence without an end date causing higher levels of self-harm as well as a lack of trust in the system that is meant to rehabilitate them.\u201d The committee recommended the establishment of a time-limited small expert committee to advise the government on a resentencing exercise for those still in prison. This recommendation, however, has not been implemented by successive governments.<\/p>\n

Peers in the House of Lords made the proposal<\/a> under \u2018Clause 19\u2019 of the sentencing bill<\/a>, which is in the final stage<\/a> at the upper house. The bill draws on the recommendations of the Independent Sentencing Review<\/a> in May 2025, aiming to address the \u2018prison crisis<\/a>.\u2019<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s statement echoes the expert\u2019s earlier call on the government<\/a> to urgently review IPP sentences. Edwards asserted that \u201c[a]s a general rule, indeterminate sentences should be used sparingly and only for the most serious crimes and offenders. Sentencing should be assessed on an individual basis, taking into account all relevant factors.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A UN expert on Monday commended the new proposals addressing the \u201clongstanding crisis of Imprisonment for Public Protection…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-696388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}