On 23 September FRFI supporters and campaigners against joint enterprise (JENGbA) protested outside Belmarsh maximum security prison in South London to highlight the continuing legacy of the sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP).
Introduced by the Blair government in 2005, the IPP condemned ‘repeat offenders’ to life imprisonment even for trivial crimes, and resulted in an exponential increase in the number of indeterminate sentenced prisoners. Although the IPP was officially abolished in 2012, this was not retrospective; almost 3,000 prisoners remain behind bars, and those who are released are subject to strict parole conditions which can last for the rest of their lives. Hundreds have been re-imprisoned for non-criminal breaches of parole conditions.
In 2022 the Parliamentary Justice Committee recommended that all IPP prisoners should be resentenced to appropriate determinate sentences and released if their time in prison had already exceeded that period. This was rejected by then Justice Secretary Dominic Raab.
In August, Dr Alice Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Punishment, called on Britain to scrap the IPP and described the psychological damage inflicted upon IPP prisoners struggling to maintain a feeling of hope, reflected by their high level of self-harm and suicide.
A central part of the protest outside Belmarsh was to show solidarity with IPP prisoner Joe Outlaw, who has bravely fought back against the system, staging two prison rooftop protests to speak out against the treatment of IPP prisoners. The reaction of the prison authorities was predictably brutal; Joe is currently buried in total solitary confinement and denied any contact with other prisoners. This inhuman treatment, which includes him being strip-searched twice a day, has only fuelled his determination and the support and solidarity he is now getting from those on the outside committed to supporting the prison struggle has deepened his commitment. It is vital that we continue this solidarity with Joe and all IPP prisoners.
John Bowden
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 296 October/November 2023
