UN Special Rapporteur Dr. Alice Jill Edwards has condemned the indefinite detention of prisoners under the UK Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) scheme, reporting the scheme as ‘cruel, inhumane and degrading’ to the Human Rights Council.

She told the Independent that such prisoners are ‘very likely being detained arbitrarily’ and argued that indefinite sentencing amounts to ‘psychological torture.’

Introduced by the New Labour government in 2005, IPP sentences gave offenders a minimum term of imprisonment but no maximum. While the scheme was abolished in 2012, over 700 prisoners remain incarcerated under IPP, many serving more than 10 years beyond their minimum term. Dr Edwards criticised the scandal as ’a terrible indictment’ of the UK’s justice system. 

The Independent has highlighted cases such as Thomas White, 42, who set himself alight after 12 years in prison for stealing a phone. His sister, Clara White, told the newspaper, ’I just want him treated with some dignity. I am being destroyed in the process along with him… He’s dying in front of me. He’s skin and bone.’

Donna Mooney, who campaigns with United Group for Reform of IPP, calls the government’s response ‘farcical.’ Mooney, whose brother took his own life on an IPP sentence, told the Independent ‘They have got it wrong with this sentence. They have acknowledged they got it wrong – and no one is prepared to fix it.’ 

Amnesty International’s Tom Southerden echoes these concerns. In an interview with the Independent, he called the system ‘a living nightmare’ and urged support for a full resentencing of IPP prisoners. A private member’s bill tabled by Lord Woodley for IPP resentencing is set to reach committee stage in the spring, though without government backing, its success is uncertain.