‘He had just given up’: The tragedy behind the highly controversial IPP prison sentences

Those who are imprisoned for public protection (IPP) experience anxiety, paranoia, depression and PTSD. They don’t know when they will leave jail and once in the community they don’t know whether they will get recalled, write Samira Ahmed, Konrad Ostrowski, Harry Robinson and Wiktoria Wrzyszcz

IPP prisoners don’t know when they will leave prison and, once in the community, they don’t know whether they will get recalled and for how long (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty)

Marc Conway looked on with concern at his fellow inmate at HMP Grendon. The prisoner’s fingernails were long and dirty and he refused to shower. Self-inflicted scars showed the physical ramifications of his mental torment. He was an emotionless husk of a man, resigned to his fate.

Both Marc and the prisoner were serving imprisonment for the protection of the public (IPP) sentences; indeterminate prison sentences with no maximum tariff that were introduced in 2003 and abolished in 2012. Marc was sentenced to a minimum tariff of five years and five months for burgling an antique dealer, but was determined to get out on parole as soon as possible. The other inmate, meanwhile, had no fight behind the eyes.

“He had just given up,” says Marc, recalling an image he’s never forgotten, “he was just existing.” The man was a decade over his minimum tariff and had endured multiple parole knock-backs. “He had cut off all contact with family and friends. I’d speak to him and he’d just say, ‘Mate, I’m going to die in prison’. It used to worry me because I’d think, is he going to commit suicide?”