By Nkem Adeleye

Several debates on the legitimacy, constitutionality, and acceptability of the death penalty have arisen throughout the years. The death row phenomenon refers to the psychological effects on prisoners of being on death row for a prolonged period while awaiting an imminent execution under harsh conditions of confinement. Having been declared a violation of a customary norm of international law by several international tribunals and national courts, this Article explores the possibility of the death row phenomenon, as a legal concept, becoming widely accepted and ultimately preventing the execution of another category of offenders. The existence of a lack of judicial consensus arising from different standards set by these courts in the determination of what constitutes delay could be an obstacle to this development. This Article suggests that if pursued diligently, the death row phenomenon could become universally accepted as an unacceptable practice and a standard could be set under international law which would become binding upon national courts.

SAN DIEGO LAW REVIEW ,  [VOL. 58: 875, 2021] , 28p.

By Roger Grimshaw

Across the UK, an individual can find themselves detained, with no clear sense of when they might be released, under a number of different powers, laws and regulations. In the case of criminal justice detention, indeterminate detention takes three main forms. An unconvicted individual can be remanded in prison while awaiting trial. Given the current backlog of cases in the criminal courts, an individual can be left languishing in prison awaiting trial for months, in some cases years. Life imprisonment – mandatory in the case of a murder conviction – is the second form of indeterminate criminal justice detention. An individual subject to a life sentence has to serve a minimum period in custody (the so-called ‘tariff’) before they can be considered for release. Ongoing detention at the end of the tariff period is common. On release, a life sentence prisoner is subject to lifelong supervision, with recall to prison at any point a real possibility. The third form of indeterminate criminal justice detention are the three life sentence-like sentences: in England and Wales, the imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence; in Northern Ireland, the indeterminate custodial sentence (ICS); and in Scotland, the order for lifelong restriction (OLR). The IPP, ICS and OLR sentences work in a way similar to the life sentence: an indeterminate period in custody, followed by ongoing supervision on release in the community, if the prisoner manages to secure release. They can, though, be imposed for a far wider range of offences than is allowed for by the relatively narrow set of offences in the case of a life sentence. The subject of this briefing is the IPP, ICS and OLR sentences. The main conclusion it draws relates to the question of whether such sentences should be considered a form of psychological torture. With the failed abolition of the IPP sentences in England and Wales, and the ongoing operation of the ICS and OLR sentences in Northern Ireland and Scotland, the torturous and unfair aspects of these indeterminate sentences are likely to become ever more apparent.

London: Centre for Crime and Justice Studies , 2023. 8p.