Legal background Imprisonment or detention for public protection: termination of licences
The IPP Sentence was introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (the 2003 Act) and could be imposed from 2005. The intention behind the sentence was to provide a means of managing high risk prisoners, who were convicted of an offence where the offender would be liable to imprisonment for life, but the court did not consider that the seriousness of the offence was such to justify the imposition of a sentence of imprisonment for life. In those cases, the courts had to impose an IPP sentence.
	Amendments were made in 2008 to give the court a discretion to impose the IPP sentence and to restrict it to cases where at least a two-year tariff would be imposed, or where the offender had committed, or previously committed, an offence in Schedule 15A of the 2003 Act (the more serious violent or sexual offences).
	The sentence is an indeterminate sentence where, similar to a life sentence, the courts will set a minimum term (tariff) commensurate with the offending which had to be served in full in prison This is the punitive part of the sentence. Post tariff the offender is serving the preventative part of the sentence and if safe to be managed in the community they can be released.
	The current position is that at the end of the tariff, and at least every two years after, the Secretary of State must refer the case to the Parole Board, who either release or confirm the further detention of the prisoner. The Parole Board are required to apply the statutory release test as set out in s28(6) of the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 (the 1997 Act). The statutory release test is that the Parole Board must be satisfied that it is no longer necessary for the protection of the public for the offender to be confined.
	If released, IPP offenders are then subject to a life licence. However, in contrast to life sentence prisoners (and the only difference between the sentences), an IPP prisoner can have their licence terminated at the discretion of the Parole Board, once ten years has elapsed from the offender’s first release by the Board. If not terminated at that, or subsequent points, the IPP licence could last indefinitely. Following an amendment in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 (PCSC Act), offenders are automatically referred to the Parole Board for possible termination of the IPP licence, once the qualifying period (currently ten years) has elapsed from their first release by the Parole Board, and annually thereafter.
	The Secretary of State refers the case to the Parole Board at the end of the qualifying period (regardless of recalls or whether the offender is recalled and in custody at the point of referral) and annually thereafter, for the licence to be revoked. An IPP sentence is not ended until the Parole Board has decided to revoke the licence. Where offenders are recalled on the IPP sentence at this point, then the ending of their sentence will not take effect until they are next released.
	From 4 December 2012, the IPP sentence was abolished by s123 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) because the perception was that it was used too widely and inconsistently with relatively short tariffs in many cases. This abolition was not applied retrospectively so as to not alter lawful sentences that had been imposed prior to the abolition.
	Those who had already been sentenced to, and are serving an IPP sentence in prison, continue to be detained either because they had not yet served the tariff or they had served the tariff, and the Parole Board have determined that their risk remains too high for them to be safely managed in the community.
	The Act reduces the qualifying period from ten years, to three years and provides a power for this qualifying period to be amended by Statutory Instrument, and include a clear statutory presumption that the Parole Board must terminate the licence at the end of the qualifying period, unless they are satisfied that it is necessary for the protection of the public that the licence remains in force. It also provides that if the Parole Board has not directed the Secretary of State to order that the licence be terminated, the Secretary of State must do so if the offender has been of good behaviour for a further two years, i.e. has not been recalled to prison in that time.