What Does Hope Look Like?
The IPP sentence has created a sense of hopelessness amongst prisoners, leading to poor mental health, self-harm and numerous suicides, so we are ending this current series by asking ‘what does hope look like’ for IPP serving prisoners?
Listen to Episode 10 of Trapped: What Does Hope Look Like?
The title of this episode was inspired by Roddy Russell, whose brother Robert is one of the 1269 IPP prisoners who are trapped in prison, and have never been released. Roddy asked me to put the question to Lord Blunkett, the architect of the Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence, who now campaigns against it.
In this episode we hear from Frank, an IPP serving prisoner who has been inside for 15 years and counting on a two-and-a-half-year tariff. We also hear from some of those who campaign to bring an end to this grievous injustice: including Andrea Coomber, from the Howard League for Penal Reform; Richard Garside from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, and award winning journalist Simon Hattenstone from the Guardian.
Richard refers to Alex Chalk the justice secretary's approach to IPPs as taking the role of “organisational psychopath”. There is a disconnect between what he says and the affect he has on the fate of prisoners and their families. Richard describes the barriers to meaningful change; an unimaginative Ministry of Justice, electoral algebra, a government heading towards a significant electoral defeat, currently led by a prime minister who doesn't have a good political antenna.
There's been lots going on in Westminster as the Victims and Prisoners bill makes its way through parliament. It's possibly the last chance to get meaningful legislative change for IPPs and finally get the nearly 3000 prisoners released.
The late Lord Justice Simon Brown said that the IPP was the "greatest stain on the British Justice system". There's a historic opportunity to correct this miscarriage of justice with the Victims and Prisoners bill, which has its first reading in the House of Lords on Monday.
Please sign/share this petition started by campaigners to encourage those in power to do the right thing and vote to resentence all IPP serving prisoners.
You can write to members of the House of Lords using this portal www.writetothem.com/lords
Last night the Trapped Team went to the British Journalism Awards 🙌🏿
The precursor to this series, Trapped In the System, presented by Roddy Russell, produced by Zinc and broadcast by BBC Radio 4 was shortlisted for the Crime and Legal Journalism award.
So this was the last episode in the current series of Trapped: The IPP Prisoner Scandal. Thank you for listening. We’ll report on any major changes next year.
Look out for Trapped, Season 2 in 2024 covering a different area of the British legal system…
You can follow us on Twitter , Instagram or Facebook @Trapped_Pod for updates. We’re also on Tik Tok, and finally getting a bit better at it!
For more info about the Campaigns for Justice for IPPs prisoners go to: UNGRIPP Twitter @UNGRIPP and IPP Committee In Action Twitter @ActionIPP