It’s been a couple of weeks since the first episode of TRAPPED: The IPP Prisoner Scandal came out.
Catch up with episode 1 here and please share it on your social media and send to friends 🙏🏿
It’s a panorama quality documentary series. That’s not my words, it’s one of our listeners! The more who know, the harder it is for injustice to take place.
Today episode 2 drops:
A Kafkaesque Maze
Listen here
Aaron has been in prison for nineteen years without parole on a two-and-a-half-year tariff. He was given an IPP sentence back in 2006 and he still doesn’t know when he’s getting out. IPP stands for Imprisonment for Public Protection. It’s a now abolished indeterminate sentence which the cross-party Justice Select Committee called 'irredeemably flawed' in October 2022. IPPs are the largest prison cohort for both self-harm and suicide, driven by hopelessness and the uncertainty of not knowing if they will ever get out.
Aaron’s sister Cherrie has been campaigning for Aaron and others like him serving the IPP sentence, to get them out. Today on Trapped, we hear Aaron and Cherrie’s story.
Cherrie has provided new accommodation, a cabin in a peaceful field, for Aaron to come home to. She’s trying to stay hopeful that he will get out and she gives him the support she can, but Aaron is losing hope and he describes his sentence as ‘psychological torture’.
In this episode we dig into the offending behaviour programs, which are an integral part of the justice system and proving your reduced risk to the parole board as an IPP serving prisoner. I found that these courses are hard to access in many prisons, impossible in others. Sometimes IPP prisoners do the courses multiple times, and the parole board still doesn't grant release, leaving these prisoners in what’s been described as ‘a Kafkaesque maze’.
Meanwhile in Westminster, it’s now June 2023 and the new Secretary of State for Justice, Alex Chalk remains non-committal on resentencing the 2916 prisoner still serving the IPP sentence, but he has also left the door open for further action. The Chair of the Justice Select Committee, Sir Bob Neill, is nipping at Chalk’s heels, with a threat to use the Victims and Prisoners bill, which is being debated in the House of Commons, to push through an amendment on resentencing the IPPs. But whilst the politicking continues in Parliament, the prisoners and their families remain in limbo.
Get in touch on Twitter or Instagram @Trapped_Pod. We’re also on Tik Tok, none of us really know how to use it, but we’re trying!
For more info about the Campaign for Justice for IPPs prisoners: UNGRIPP www.ungripp.com/ Twitter @UNGRIPP
Samantha, thank you for writing about this difficult and contentious subject.