Abstract
Introduced in England and Wales in 2003, the controversial sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) allowed for the detention of persons deemed to be ‘dangerous’ beyond their sentence tariff, and critically required that they were no longer assessed as being ‘dangerous’ before they could be released. Significantly, the IPP marked a fundamental shift in orientation from retributivist sentencing (exacting a penalty for past deeds) to a form of preemptive justice (based on what a person might do in the future). In a skilful analysis based on interviews with ‘elite actors’, i.e. those involved in policy-making, this book provides the context for the impetus for the introduction of this sentence by a Labour government in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to its ultimate abolition by the coalition government in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act 2012.
Annison charts a confluence of factors that gave rise to the IPP, including the increased focus on risk within the criminal justice system and the misplaced faith of policy-makers in the scope and validity of risk assessment tools; New Labour’s ‘Third Way’ political project characterized by a highly interventionist approach to criminal justice, and several high profile cases which were championed in the tabloid media.
Annison’s analysis of the policy-making climate within the ‘Westminster Tradition’, ‘a top-down, closed and elitist system of government’ (p. 73), where dissenting voices are excluded, is fascinating. Through the use of interview data, analysis of policy documents, key legal judgments, and parliamentary debates, he shows how a moral project to ‘protect the public’ from the spectre of the ‘dangerous’ offender, was deaf to principled and evidence-based concerns about the feasibility of such an enterprise.
The problems with the sentence were clear from the outset. The original legislation reduced the scope of judicial discretion and meant that far more people were made subject to IPPs than originally envisaged. The numbers sentenced led to a rise in the prison population, something that had been forecast by the Home Office’s own research department. Compounding these effects, insufficient resources were provided to allow people to take part in rehabilitative programmes within prison to demonstrate they were no longer ‘dangerous’, or for the Parole Board to effectively process these cases. As the full impact of the IPPs emerged – including people sentenced to short tariffs spending indeterminate periods in prison – a chorus of critical voices and a series of legal challenges on behalf of prisoners caught in this quandary increased the pressure on government to act to rectify this penal policy disaster. However, attempts to reform the legislation in order to reduce the numbers of people being made subject to IPPs met with limited success.
But how to backtrack from this legislative cul-de-sac? What government wants to be responsible for releasing people who have been deemed dangerous? This book provides a unique vantage point from the perspective of key actors involved in the politics of penal policy-making and penal reform. Annison speculates that the abolition of the sentence could only have been achieved within a short window – early enough into an election cycle for it not to become a central election issue, and by those with sufficient political capital to drive it forward. The eventual abolition of the sentence was led by Kenneth Clarke as Justice Secretary and Crispin Blunt as Prisons Minister, offices which they both held for a relatively short period. The need to abolish IPPs was framed in terms of principles of justice and in the context of austerity and the costs of the rising prison population. Annison notes that Chris Grayling, Clarke’s successor in the post, was not in favour of abolishing the IPP, but by the time he entered office plans for abolition were too far down the track to derail.
To prevent a backlash, the abolition of IPPs was also seen to require a ‘retributive shield’ (p. 164). In the same legislation in which IPPs were abolished tougher sentences for knife crime and new provisions for mandatory life sentences were introduced. Most critically, in order to avoid the charge of releasing thousands of ‘dangerous’ offenders in one sweep, the legislation abolishing IPPs was not applied retroactively. This means that thousands of people subject to IPPs remain in limbo – unable to prove a negative, i.e. that they are no longer dangerous. The plight of these prisoners (in March 2016, 3347 remained in prison, having served their minimum tariff) has been the subject of continued policy attention. In an attempt to address this impasse, Nick Hardwick, the new Chair of the Parole Board, has suggested that the onus should be on authorities to prove ‘dangerousness’ rather than for individuals to disprove that they are a continued danger to the public. 1 This would require the activation of a clause in the LASPO Act 2012, which allows the Justice Secretary to alter the test the Parole Board applies when considering the release of prisoners.
Dangerous Politics provides a salutary lesson in failed policy-making. Addressing the question of whether the IPP was a populist response to public concerns, Annison argues that the ‘public’ were only ever invoked as ‘dummy players’ to drive the policy forward. The ‘public’ was otherwise excluded from the rarified policy-making process. He describes this as a form of ‘illusory democracy’. The book concludes with a consideration of what might be a better way forward – in what ways can the development of penal policy be framed by a consideration of evidence, and effective public engagement? He concludes that, ultimately, the answer may lie outside the sphere of criminal justice and in more meaningful forms of representative democracy.