Life imprisonment in England and Wales

In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence which lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for parole (officially termed "early release") after a fixed period set by the judge. This period is known as the "minimum term" (previously known as the "tariff"). In some exceptionally grave cases, however, a judge may order that a life sentence should mean life by making a "whole life order."

Murder has carried a mandatory life sentence in England and Wales since capital punishment was suspended in 1965. There is currently no "first degree" or "second degree" murder definition. However, there were two degrees of murder between 1957 and 1965, one carrying the death penalty and one life imprisonment, and there have recently been plans to introduce such a definition.

Life imprisonment is only applicable to defendants aged 21 or over. Those aged between 18 and 20 are sentenced to custody for life. Those aged under 18 are sentenced to detention during Her Majesty's pleasure for murder, or detention for life for other crimes where life imprisonment is the sentence for adults. However people under 21 may not be sentenced to a whole life order, and so must become eligible for parole.

In addition to the sentences mentioned above, until 2012 there were two other kinds of life sentence, imprisonment for public protection (for those over 18) and detention for public protection (for those under 18). These were for defendants whose crimes were not serious enough to merit a normal life sentence, but who were considered a danger to the public and so should not be released until the Parole Board had decided that they no longer represented a risk. These sentences were abolished by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, although a number of prisoners remain imprisoned under the former legislation.

When Parliament was considering abolition of the death penalty, there were many MPs who were against the reform, and the deal offered was that former capital offences would always inevitably merit a mandatory life sentence. Accordingly, life imprisonment replaced the death penalty as punishment for murderers, firstly for those whose sentences were commuted and later for those whose crimes were not "aggravated" within the meaning of the Homicide Act 1957. To begin with, it was fairly common for those sentenced to life to be released in around ten to fifteen years. As time passed, it came to be thought that longer sentences should be imposed, especially in cases such as the Moors Murders, the Yorkshire Ripper and Dennis Nilsen. The Home Secretary (and now the Minister for Justice) was empowered to make Whole Life Orders to ensure that particularly dangerous or heinous criminals were never released. Presently mandatory lifers serve an average of 14 years and for other lifers the average has been in decline and now stands at nine years.

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