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Terrorists face open-ended jail terms

By John Hirst

Terrorists face open-ended jail terms

Convicted terrorists will be jailed indefinitely under controversial plans drawn up by ministers.

The proposals will see open-ended prison sentences, in use since 2005 for violent and sexual offenders, made available for a wide range of terror-related offences.

Crimes for which indefinite sentences could be handed down by judges include inciting terrorism, attending terrorist training camps or directing terror organisations.

Indeterminate public protection sentences, or IPPs, allow the authorities to keep an offender in jail even after their minimum sentence has expired if the Parole Board believes there is a chance the criminal will reoffend.

The Criminal Justice Act 2003, which brought IPPs into force, excluded terrorism from the range of offences for which the new-style sentences could be handed down.

The move to extend the new sentences to terrorist offences was contained in the Coroners and Justice Bill. It received no attention because it was overshadowed by other proposals such as secret inquest powers.

I neither support terrorists nor terrorists acts. Nor do I support the authorities making out that particular acts are worse than they actually are by drafting vague legislation which amounts to a "catch-all rule". I am in favour of the principle of time for the crime. I do not support what amounts to the Parole Board holding secret retrials and sentencing so-called terrorists to imprisonment for potential future offences which are only figments of the Parole Board's vivid imaginations. This is the introduction of "Thought Crime".

Full post as published by prisonlawinsideout on January 18, 2009 (boomark / email).