What you see is not always what you get. When a judge hands down a 16-year terrorism sentence it’s really eight years in custody with the rest on parole. The set-up is a bit of a swindle dating back to the 1960s, backed up by journalists who like a big number for the headline – myself included.
In the Queen’s Speech last month, the government promised to extend custodial sentences for terrorists as a reaction to the London Bridge attack on 29 November in which Usman Khan stabbed two criminologists to death just a year after he was released from a ’16-year’ terrorism sentence halfway through.
Boris Johnson and Priti Patel are still not suggesting that what you see will be what you get. Even for terrorists, the custodial element of a jail sentence will be two-thirds of the total instead of half.
For the most dangerous offenders, we are told, they will be expected to serve all of their sentence.
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