Member

Complaints about the inequities of IPP sentences are familiar in this House and to the Minister, yet the state still incarcerates 2,600 people indefinitely. Although, brilliantly, there has been reform of the draconian IPP recall regime, there is still a whole body of evidence to suggest that mental distress is one of the most pervasive and intrinsic factors associated with IPP sentences. That is not because of pre-existing mental health issues but is a distinctive characteristic of the specific sentence itself, over and above the general experience of imprisonment. The way the sentence is psychologically toxic is well documented in the literature, assessed invaluably in UNGRIPP’s report Making Sense of the Mental Health of People Serving an IPP Sentence by Donna Mooney and Sophie Ellis.