Jailed for Life for Minor Crimes: The UKs Forgotten Prisoners

In a threemonth investigation, VICE News uses Freedom of Information laws, exclusive interviews, and prison reports to uncover the scandal of the 4, 612 prisoners serving life sentences under abolished legislation some for relatively minor crimes. From 2005, judges in England and Wales started giving out a new kind of life sentence for offenses such as shoplifting, minor criminal damage, and affray (fighting in public). Indeterminate Sentences for Public Protection (IPPs) were found to breach the Europe