IPP: no resentencing mechanism for the 2,400 people still imprisoned on an abolished sentence
Imprisonment for Public Protection was abolished in 2012, prospectively only. More than 2,400 people remain in prison on the sentence, and 1,012 of them had never been released as of 31 March 2025, many held years or decades past short tariffs. The Justice Committee recommended a resentencing exercise in 2022. Successive governments refused, including the current ministers, who call IPP a stain on the justice system. The Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 and the Sentencing Act 2026 shortened licence periods, which helps people already released. The never-released gain nothing from it. Lord Woodley's private member's bill requiring resentencing within 24 months reached Lords committee in July 2025 without government support. In January 2026 the UN special rapporteur on torture urged judicial reconsideration of every IPP sentence. UNGRIPP, the Prison Reform Trust and the Howard League campaign for the change, and only legislation can deliver it.
This is the UK's largest ongoing acknowledged injustice: people held indefinitely on a sentence Parliament abolished fourteen years ago. Self-harm and suicide rates on IPP run far above the prison average. Licence reforms cannot reach someone who has never been released, and each year more IPP prisoners die in custody than reach a stable release.
A statutory resentencing exercise designed by an expert committee, on the model the Justice Committee set out in 2022. Phasing would start with never-released prisoners past their tariff. Judges would have discretion to impose determinate equivalents with enhanced supervision. Amendments to the next criminal justice bill could carry it, or the Woodley bill could, given government time.
// State-led: Instrument: resentencing legislation; Woodley bill given government time or amendments to the next criminal justice bill.
Thousands remain imprisoned on a sentence abolished fourteen years ago and people die in custody waiting. Only legislation can resentence, and the one live bill lacks government backing.