What Are Indeterminate Sentences?

There are broadly two different types of prison sentence: indeterminate and determinate sentences. Determinate sentences are sentences for which the prisoner will have a specific date upon which they will become eligible for parole, when they will be released from custody if they do not get parole, when their licence will expire, and when their sentence will expire.

Minimum Terms

Indeterminate sentences are different from this as there is no specific date upon which the prisoner will be released. Prisoners do not become eligible for parole until they have served their ‘minimum term.’ This used to be called a ‘tariff’. For example, a person convicted of murder may have been sentenced to ‘life’ imprisonment, with a requirement that they serve a minimum term of sixteen years. The sixteen year period is the punitive period of the sentence, and it is only after this period has been served that the prisoner would become eligible for parole.

The Parole Procedure

Once this period has been served, the prisoner will have a parole hearing before the parole board. This happens automatically, about six months before the prisoner first becomes eligible for parole or up to three years before this date (if the prisoner is serving a longer minimum term.) At this hearing, the parole board will consider reports relating to the prisoner’s progress in prison, such as their conduct in prison, any courses that they have completed, a report from their probation officer and the prison psychologist, and their attitude in relation to the offence for which they are serving the sentence. The parole board will then consider whether to:

• make a recommendation for release
• make a recommendation that the prisoner should be transferred to open conditions
• give directions for further information
• make no recommendation

If a prisoner is not released at this stage, the secretary of state will decide when the prisoner’s next review will be. In any event the next parole date cannot be any later than two years later, unless the prisoner consents to this.

Release or Open Conditions?

In order to direct that a prisoner should be released from prison, the parole board have to be satisfied that the public no longer has to be protected from the prisoner, and that the risk of them committing serious offences is very low. The parole board may decide that the prisoner should alternatively be transferred to open conditions in prison. The parole board may do this if the prisoner has reduced their risk to the public sufficiently to allow them to be unsupervised in the community (temporary release on licence). Further, they need to be happy that the prisoner will comply with the conditions of their temporary licence, and that the risk of them absconding from prison while on temporary licence is low.

Prisoners Serving Imprisonment for Public Protection

It is not only prisoners serving life sentences who are subject to this process. Prisoners who have been deemed to be ‘dangerous’ by the court and whose offence warrants a sentence of imprisonment of at least four years for their offence may be sentenced to an IPP or imprisonment for public protection. A large number of prisoners who are given IPP end up languishing in prison past their minimum term as it is very difficult for them to prove that they have reduced their ‘risk’ sufficiently to the satisfaction of the parole board.