[glimmung]

> IPP sentences were created specifically to deal with prisoners who habitually reoffend on release.

The whole point about this situation is that the sentences were applied to people who do NOT fit that description (not my just view, also the view of the architect of this atrocity, David Blunkett), so in the majority of cases in question your reasoning does not apply.

[jdietrich]

HM Inspectorate of Probation's review on IPP prisoners released on license paints a very different picture - of people with complex problems, chaotic lives and a high and ongoing risk of reoffending.

IPP prisoners can't be arbitrarily detained forever. There has to be a reason for the refusal of parole or for a recall to prison. There are clearly significant shortcomings in how IPP prisoners are supported, but it's also clear that a cohort of people who are living with drug addiction, severe mental illness and behavioural problems are going to struggle to stay on the straight and narrow even in ideal circumstances.

https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprobation/wp-cont...

[glimmung]

Thanks for the link - will take some time for me to digest.

> people with complex problems, chaotic lives and a high and ongoing risk of reoffending.

Surely that applies to almost all prisoners?

I don't think that you have addressed my point though, which is that the people who have been given these sentences are not those supposedly targeted by the law.

I couldn't disagree with any of the points that you make, but I think we're talking past each other. There is a threshold at which these sentences might make sense, and we risk conflating discussion about those cases with the much larger number of problematic cases where the logic is - at least quantitatively - different.