Recommendation 21

In establishing how to undertake a resentencing exercise of IPP prisoners and what legislation would be needed, it will be important to keep in mind the following three key principles: (Paragraph 175) a) Balancing protection of the public with justice for the individual offender: A resentencing exercise must strike a balance between protecting the public from the risk of IPP prisoners committing serious further offences if released and securing justice for individual offenders. To achieve that balance, it must be accompanied by sufficient resources to provide released IPP offenders with the support they need—including mental health support—to reintegrate into society. It must also avoid a one-size-fits-all approach and should prioritise the offenders most adversely affected by the sentence: those who were sentenced in the early years of the sentence, prior to the ‘seriousness threshold’ changes in 2008. Any resentencing exercise should also ensure that current sentencing practices designed to ensure protection of the public from serious violent and sexual offenders, such as the way Extended Determinate Sentences are applied and supported, serve as a model in relation to resentenced IPP offenders. b) The independence of the judiciary: We agree with Lord Thomas that undertaking a resentencing exercise would not interfere with the judicial independence of 62 IPP sentences sentencing. Indeed, it was the decision to curtail the usual discretion of judges to determine the most appropriate sentence for each offender that led to the initial proliferation of the IPP sentence. It would be important, therefore, for a resentencing exercise not to repeat that mistake. In resentencing IPP prisoners the judiciary must be able to make an independent and fair assessment of the individual circumstances of each case and have the discretion to determine an appropriate sentence. c) Measures to prevent retrospectively increasing the sentence: Any resentencing exercise must be constrained