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Coroners and Justice Bill

The amendment is intended to abolish sentences of imprisonment or detention for public protection, commonly known as IPPs and DPPs. As the Committee knows, those sentences were introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and commenced for offences committed on or after 5 April 2005. Under the 2003 Act, originally, the courts were obliged to pass such sentences on offenders who committed a serious sexual or violent offence—that is one carrying a maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment or more—if the court considered them to be dangerous. In this context, an offender might be assumed to be dangerous if they had committed a previous relevant sexual or violent offence. The danger that the courts were, and are, required to assess is whether the offender poses a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm by committing further specified sexual or violent offences. The sentences are similar to a life sentence in the way that they operate: the judge sets a minimum period to be served—the tariff—for the purposes of punishment. Once the prisoner has served the tariff, he will be released only if the Parole Board considers him safe to be released into the community. I suspect that the amendment has been partly prompted by the difficulties that have been encountered by the high number of public protection sentences imposed with short tariffs. It has been suggested that the Government failed to plan for the introduction of public protection sentences. We do not accept that.