1. Tariff Served ≠ Freedom Earned
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The tariff is meant to reflect the punitive portion of the sentence—how long someone must stay in prison as punishment.
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After that, continued detention is supposed to be preventive, based only on whether the person still poses a serious risk.
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But in reality, many lifers stay 10, 20, even 30+ years past tariff, stuck in a cycle of risk assessments, panel delays, or blocked progression—with no new offences committed.
⚖️ Imagine being told you've “done your time,” but the door never opens.
2. Parole Decisions Are Often Opaque and Conservative
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The Parole Board operates with a strong emphasis on public protection, which can override evidence of rehabilitation.
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Risk assessments are often subjective, vulnerable to:
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Institutional bias
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Lack of access to progression programs
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Personality clashes or paperwork errors
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🔍 One flawed psychological report can set someone back years—often without a clear path to appeal.
3. No End Date = Psychological Punishment
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Indeterminate sentences create a constant state of limbo: “Will I ever get out?”
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This indefinite incarceration can cause:
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Severe mental health deterioration
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Hopelessness and institutionalisation
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Loss of family relationships, housing, and societal ties
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🧠 Even the European Court of Human Rights has called such uncertainty “inhuman and degrading” when release mechanisms fail.
4. Access to Rehabilitation Can Be Blocked
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Many discretionary lifers are denied access to core offending behaviour programs, often due to:
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Lack of availability
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Eligibility criteria
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Prison transfers or bureaucracy
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Without completing these, parole panels often say: “You’re not ready.”
🔁 It’s a catch-22: You need courses to prove readiness, but you’re not “ready” to be given courses.
5. Comparison to Fixed-Term Sentences Shows the Disparity
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Someone with a 25-year fixed sentence is guaranteed release after serving time, with no further test.
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A discretionary lifer with a 7-year tariff may serve 30+ years with no fresh offence—just unproven "risk."
⚖️ Two people can commit the same crime. One gets a clock; the other gets a question mark.
6. Racial and Class Disparities Deepen the Injustice
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Data shows Black and working-class prisoners are more likely to:
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Be assessed as “high risk”
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Be placed in high-security prisons
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Be denied parole or delayed progression
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This perpetuates structural inequality under the guise of public protection.
7. The IPP Parallel Shows the Dangers of Indeterminacy
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The scandal around Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection (IPPs) mirrors the plight of discretionary lifers.
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Both:
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Tie release to vague, shifting notions of risk
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Result in massive over-incarceration
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Violate principles of proportionality and rehabilitation
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🔓 Lord Brown once described these sentences as a "stain on the justice system."
🧭 What Justice Should Look Like
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Clear, transparent parole decisions based on evidence, not fear.
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Proper funding for rehabilitation and progression pathways.
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A statutory presumption of release after tariff if no new risk is proven.
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Regular judicial reviews of continued detention.
✊ Bottom Line
Keeping discretionary lifers in prison decades after they’ve served their tariff is not justice—it’s punishment without principle. These are people who were never sentenced to die behind bars, yet for many, the system quietly turns a minimum term into a de facto life sentence.
8. Systemic Drift and Institutional Inertia
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Discretionary lifers often become "out of sight, out of mind" within the prison system.
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With no fixed release date, there’s little institutional incentive to prioritize their progression.
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Delays in parole reviews, lost reports, or staff shortages are common—and lifers pay the price with lost years.
🗂️ A missed review or misfiled document can mean another 2+ years inside.
🗣️ 9. Victim-Centered Narratives Can Overshadow Rehabilitation
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While the needs of victims matter deeply, public discourse around sentencing has shifted toward permanent punishment.
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In parole decisions, public opinion or media pressure can tilt risk assessments toward indefinite detention—even for lifers who've changed.
🎥 A single headline like “Killer to walk free” can set parole culture back years—regardless of the actual facts.
🧱 10. The Environment Works Against Reform
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Lifers often spend decades in high-security or Category B prisons, which are:
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Overcrowded
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Understaffed
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Lacking in tailored resettlement planning
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Meaningful access to open prisons—where lifers could demonstrate real-world risk reduction—is limited or blocked altogether.
🚫 Too many lifers are denied progression to open conditions because of paperwork delays or overly cautious gatekeeping.
🛠️ 11. Psychological Tools Are Not Infallible
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Tools used to assess “risk”—like OASys, HCR-20, or SARA—are only as reliable as the person applying them.
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Many are:
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Biased toward institutional behavior
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Poor at measuring future risk
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Built around compliance, not desistance
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⚖️ You can’t quantify a human being’s future like you would a weather forecast—but that’s what risk tools try to do.
🌍 12. Other Countries Handle This Differently
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In countries like Norway, Germany, and the Netherlands, even lifers have structured, reviewable pathways to reintegration.
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Emphasis is placed on restorative justice, rehabilitation, and social reintegration—not open-ended warehousing.
🌱 In Norway, a lifer can move to a halfway house after showing progress; in the UK, they might wait 10 years for a psychology appointment.
🗃️ 13. Lifers Are Aging—and Forgotten
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Many discretionary lifers are now in their 60s, 70s, or even 80s.
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They represent:
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No physical threat
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High medical needs
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Massive financial cost to the system (over £50,000 per year per prisoner)
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Yet they're often denied parole based on a static label from decades ago.
🧓 One man, sentenced at 23, is still inside at 72—not for reoffending, but for not being deemed “safe enough.”
🧾 14. It Undermines Rule of Law and Proportionality
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Justice must be predictable, transparent, and proportionate.
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Discretionary life sentences fail on all three:
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They morph over time from fixed punishment to endless preventive detention.
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Release depends on opaque criteria and interpretations of “risk.”
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There’s no automatic judicial oversight once tariff is served.
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⚠️ A sentence with no clear end point is a sentence of fear, not law.
⚖️ Final Thought: Justice Demands Certainty and Hope
Indeterminate life sentences for discretionary lifers create a class of prisoners trapped in legal quicksand. These are not people serving natural life for mass murder—they're individuals who often committed crimes decades ago, served their punishment, and changed.
To keep them detained based on administrative delay, pessimistic forecasting, or societal vengeance is not protection—it is systemic cruelty dressed in legal process.
✅ What Needs to Change
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✅ Automatic parole review upon tariff expiry, unless new evidence of serious risk is present
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✅ Greater transparency in parole decisions
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✅ Statutory time limits on detention post-tariff
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✅ Expanded use of open conditions and resettlement planning
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✅ Independent review of cases held over 10+ years post-tariff
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