The SOPC was introduced in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 in England and Wales and must be imposed upon offenders aged over 18 who have committed a terrorist or sexual offence specified in Schedule 13 of the Sentencing Code, in circumstances where the court finds that neither the seriousness threshold for applying a life sentence, nor the dangerousness threshold for applying an EDS, have been met (section 278 of the Sentencing Code).
	Under section 244A of the 2003 Act, all non-terrorist offenders serving a SOPC are considered for early release by the Board from the half-way point. The release provisions for SOPCs for terrorist offenders were amended by the TORER Act 2020 so they cannot be considered for release before the two-thirds point of their custodial sentence. All SOPC offenders, whether terrorist or non-terrorist, must be released at the end of their custodial term and are subject to a further 12-month licence period to manage the assessed risk the offender poses.
Legal background Sentence for Offenders of Particular Concern