It was nearly 20 years ago when Luke Ings, 17 at the time, received imprisonment for public protection (IPP) for robbery and assault in a McDonald's in Bracknell, a town in England. Eighteen years later, now 36, is still locked up in HMP Wakefield, a high-security prison located in Wakefield, West, Yorkshire, England.
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According to Luke's mother, Samantha, his son is trapped inside a prison that is filled with England's most dangerous criminals. Said prison is commonly known as the "Monster Mansion." Inside, the number of murderers and sex offenders can be overwhelming.
"He was 17 years old and my mum had died two weeks before that," Samantha said to The Independent. "He went off the rails. I don't know what else to do to get him out."
The rest of the inmates in HMP Wakefield pose a threat to Luke Ings' life. However, a problematic statistic worries Samantha even further. Out of all IPP prisoners, there have been 1,886 instances of self-harm and 86 suicides. This rate is ten times higher than that of a regular UK prisoner, according to government data.
IPP, An Inhumane Sentence
According to the Prison Reform Trust site, IPP "was intended for people considered 'dangerous' but whose offence did not merit a life sentence." This type of detention could potentially become unlimited. The threshold at which a person ceases to become "dangerous" can be subjective.
After being introduced in 2005, IPP was eventually abolished in 2012. However, this abolishment was not retroactive, meaning that thousands of IPP prisoners remained in prison then. Some of them, like Luke, remain imprisoned to this day without a hope of ever getting out.
Currently, labour peer Lord Woodley has proposed a new private member's bill. If approved in the House of Lords, this could potentially ensure a resentence of all IPP prisoners. "In the midst of an appalling prison overcrowding crisis, having almost 3,000 people locked up on IPPs with no end in sight makes absolutely no sense at all," said Woodley.
Regarding this possibility, Luke's mother said that this could "empty some of their prisons." She continued: "The only fear is some of them have been in there that long, are they going to be able to cope on the outside?" According to her, her son's imprisonment made him a "nervous man who struggles to make eye contact."
