This jurisdiction’s ‘love affair’ with life sentences may be diminishing. But there are still more than 11,000 people serving indeterminate sentences in prison today. This article explores this population, in the context of current law and practice. The article raises questions of principle, including the need for careful ‘supervision’ of all sentence decisions, especially when those decisions are indeterminate. It argues that the concept of the ‘minimum term’, in particular, needs to be considered further: it is suggested that the ‘punitive period’ should not necessarily be fixed from the beginning of the sentence. The case law provokes many questions which need to be explored further in order to justify not only indeterminate sentences – but also the length of time that individual prisoners serve in prison before release (or re-release).