Captive audience
OUR introduction to this compelling series is a dangerous prisoner showing off his tattoo that reads: ‘Can’t stop, won’t stop.’ He explains that he won’t be stopping his criminal activity any time soon. Then he warns: “So if you see this face, run.”
The thug in question is serving a controversial IPP sentence – Imprisonment for Public Protection, created in 2003 by the then-Home Secretary David Blunkett to
allow courts to give a sentence without an end date.
Potentially dangerous criminals can only be released if they can convince the Parole Board that they are no longer a threat to the public, otherwise they will stay in jail until they die.
This is the first issue taken on by this series, filmed over two years, which captures the work of the criminal justice system on both sides.
This episode follows two IPP prisoners in HMP Winchester.
Aaron Harris has been in prison for a total of 11 years for two violent assaults.
He’s been self harming ever since being given his IPP sentence.
He says: “You lock someone up without a date for release and no hope for the future and they become hopeless.
“When you become hopeless your behaviour becomes increasingly erratic.”
Paul Bousell is in prison for holding up a Londis store and threatening staff with a knife, following a history of violent offending.
He says: “I basically said to the shopkeeper, ‘If you don’t open the till, I’m gonna stab you’.”
Paul has a parole hearing coming up but can he convince the system he’s no longer a risk?