Introduction

Risk is now firmly embedded as a key concept within criminal justice through legislative requirements, the practice of risk assessments that determine both sentencing and parole decisions, and resource allocation to the supervision of offenders in the community. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 continued the principle of bifurcation enshrined in the Criminal Justice Act 1991: first, through establishing the treatment orders discussed in this volume; and, second, by cementing the prioritisation of risk and sentencing in relation to the risk of potential future harm (see Ashworth, 2011). On the basis of this legislation, criminal justice practitioners, and most notably probation officers, are required to formulate assessments pertaining to a future event, which may, for example, result in the imposition of an indeterminate public protection sentence (IPP). No other criminal sanction demonstrates our preoccupation with risk, risk aversion and those offenders who pose the ‘greatest’ threat than the use of the IPP. By 31 December 2009, 5,788 individuals had received an IPP, of whom only 75 have been released and stayed out (Bridges and Owers, 2010). IPP prisoners now constitute around one in 15 of the total prison population, and 2,393 individuals have now served past their tariff date. Their use clearly exceeded expectation and has only been curbed through amendments to sentencing introduced through the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. As a result of this legislation, the rate of new IPP sentences passed fell by approximately half – from an average of 141 a month to an average of 70 per month (Bridges and Owers, 2010).

At the time of writing, the Coalition government has announced that the IPP will be replaced by the Extended Determinate Sentence (EDS) (see Ministry of Justice, 2011) under which all prisoners will serve at least two thirds of their sentence (as opposed to half); crucially, however, whether a prisoner is released will still require Parole Board Approval (it seems that people who are currently on an IPP will simply switch to the EDS), determined by an assessment of risk of serious harm and risk of further offending. The use of IPP and its potential replacement highlights the politicisation of risk, with successive governments adopting policies based on ‘toughness’ aimed at placating the media and public.