source: The Guardian

first published: 30 August 2026

Image Credit: Unsplash at www.FreeRangeStock.com

Campaigners have hailed Andy Burnham’s pledge to bring an end to indefinite jail terms as “a day that thousands of families have spent years fighting for.”

The prime minister has said he will “end the injustice” of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences during this parliament, meaning people will no longer be trapped indefinitely under a sentence abolished more than a decade ago.

The IPP sentence was a form of indeterminate sentence in which offenders were given a minimum jail tariff but no maximum for a range of crimes.

Introduced in 2005, IPPs were designed for the indefinite detention of serious offenders who were perceived to be a risk to the public, but were used much more widely than intended and issued to offenders who committed low-level crimes. The sentence was scrapped in 2012 but its abolition was not retrospective.

Those given an IPP sentence were, in addition, placed on licence indefinitely after release, and were only eligible to have their licence removed after 10 years. The 10-year period was overturned last year and IPP prisoners may now seek termination of their licence after two years in the community, and it ends automatically after four years.

Statistics from the Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service show that as of 30 June this year 856 people remained behind bars after being given IPP sentences. Eight out of 10 of those have been jailed for at least 10 years beyond the minimum term at which they could apply for parole.

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