Prison without hope or end is psychological torture. Burnham doesn’t need another review to tell him that
Political leaders have kicked the can of public protection tariff reform down the road for years – causing hopeless inmates to take their own lives
In January 2015, Tommy Nicol told his family that he was suffering “psychological torture of a person who is doing 99 years”. Nicol had been given an imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence six years earlier for stealing a car from a garage and injuring the owner. He was already two years beyond his four-year tariff – the minimum time you can serve in prison before being considered for release. Nicol was given another two-year knock-back from the Parole Board and was in despair. If and when he got released, he would be on a lifelong licence. Eight months later, aged 37, Nicol hanged himself at The Mount prison in Hertfordshire, England.
By the time he took his own life, the inhumane IPP sentence had already been abolished for three years. The problem is, it didn’t apply retroactively. Those already serving IPP sentences stayed on them. This, despite David Blunkett, who devised and introduced them as home secretary in 2005, calling it “the biggest regret” of his political career. And this despite UN special rapporteur on torture Alice Edwards agreeing with Tommy Nicol that the sentence was “psychological torture”. Astonishingly, more than 2,000 people are still serving IPP sentences in England and Wales.
Last week prime minister Andy Burnham announced a new review into indeterminate sentences as part of his plan to reduce the prison population. Reviewing a sentence that was abolished 14 years ago seems Kafkaesque. And what exactly is left to review? We all know IPPs are wrong – they are no longer handed down, and those serving them should be resentenced. Review after review has said so. Surely it makes more sense to simply introduce legislation to make that happen?
IPPs were given to people who didn’t merit life sentences, but were regarded as a risk to society. With an IPP, once prisoners have served their tariff, they have to apply to the Parole Board for release. The Parole Board only grants release if satisfied that the offender no longer poses a risk to the public. This means that an IPP prisoner could be detained indefinitely. It was expected that very few prisoners would receive IPPs (an estimated 900 at any one time) and only for serious crimes.
The reality couldn’t have been more different. Between 2005 and 2013 (a handful of people were sentenced after the cut-off of 31 December 2012), 8,711 people were given an IPP sentence. While some had long tariffs, most were on low tariffs for minor crimes. Nevertheless, many never got released. Or if they did, they were recalled to prison for the slightest breaches of their licence, such as being late for appointments with probation officers.
Often the people who were imprisoned on an IPP were already vulnerable. Not surprisingly, many prisoners lost hope, like Nicol did. Ninety-four people had taken their own lives up to March 2025 while serving the sentence in prison. Forty-four people are known to have taken their own lives while out on licence, though these community-based figures have only been tracked since April 2019, so are likely to be higher.
The IPP horror stories are legion, and many concern young people such as Martin Myers, who served 18 years for attempting to steal a cigarette, despite having an original tariff of just 19 months and 27 days when sentenced aged 24; Ronnie Sinclair served 16 years in jail on a three-year IPP tariff for stealing a flowerpot at the age of 17; and Wayne Bell was 17 when he was imprisoned on an IPP for punching a boy and stealing a bike in 2007 on a tariff of one year and 350 days. He is still in prison 19 years later.
Although the lifelong licence was removed for IPP prisoners in 2024, many are still serving the sentence. As of June 2026, there were 2,271 IPP prisoners jailed in England and Wales – 856 unreleased prisoners and 1,415 recalled prisoners.
This proposed review would be the third since 2022 when the cross-party Justice Committee Inquiry concluded IPP sentences were “irredeemably flawed” and recommended resentencing. Nothing was done. Last year the Howard League expert working group recommended fixed-release windows for IPP prisoners. Nothing was done. A private member’s bill sponsored by (Lord) Anthony Woodley urged a comprehensive, retrospective resentencing exercise for all prisoners still subject to an IPP. The bill passed its second reading in the House of Lords and progressed to the committee stage, but the government blocked it.
The campaign group Ungripp fears that any new review will have the same outcome as previous ones. “Each review meant more wasted time, more people on IPP despairing and inevitably, more suicides,” it says. “How can we be confident this will be any different?”
Shockingly, all but three of the 2,271 people serving IPP sentences in prison are past their tariff. With resentencing, these three prisoners would be given a fitting determinate sentence, while the 2,268 remaining IPP prisoners would gradually be released with appropriate social care and housing to ensure they were safe within the community and the community safe with them. The £60,000 a year saved in prison costs would go a considerable way towards paying for this.
So why hasn’t it yet been done? Simple. Political leaders are terrified of looking soft on crime – so they have consistently kicked the IPP can down the road. Yet IPP sentences are universally recognised as unjust. Not a single mainstream politician defends this barbaric sentence.
after newsletter promotion
Last year Keir Starmer said: “It is right that the IPP sentence has been abolished”, but he wasn’t brave enough to resentence IPP prisoners. Andy Burnham must be braver.
The former supreme court justice Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood called IPP “the greatest single stain on our criminal justice system” in a 2020 report for the Prison Reform Trust. If Burnham wants to show he means business, he will not bother with another review and will simply legislate to get this shaming stain removed once and for all.
Resentencing is too late for Tommy Nicol and the many others IPP prisoners who took their own lives, but it’s not too late for those still behind bars, tortured by not knowing whether their imprisonment will ever end.
-
Simon Hattenstone is a Guardian features writer
-
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Explore more on these topics