<P> The whole life order ( formerly a whole life tariff ) is a court order whereby a prisoner who is being sentenced to life imprisonment is ordered to serve that sentence without any possibility of parole or conditional release . This order may be made in cases of aggravated murders committed by anyone who was aged 21 or above at the time of the crime . The purpose of a whole life order is for a prisoner to be kept in prison until he or she dies with almost no chance of eventual release , although parole can be granted in exceptional circumstances . A prisoner can still be released by the Home Secretary on compassionate grounds such as great age , injury , disability or ill health ; which has also seen several life sentence prisoners being granted early release a considerable length of time before the date when they could first apply for parole . A whole life tariff can also be quashed on appeal by the Court of Appeal ; a number of prisoners have had their sentences reduced by this method . From 1983 , the Home Secretary had the right to decide how long a life sentence prisoner should serve before being considered for parole , and the trial judge was not obliged to recommend when or if an offender should be considered for parole . In some cases , the trial judge had recommended that a life sentence prisoner should at some point be considered for parole , only for the Home Secretary to later impose a whole life tariff ; this happened in a number of cases involving prisoners who had been sentenced to life imprisonment before or after 1983 . </P>
what can you get a life sentence for in the uk
aggravated murders committed by anyone who was aged 21 or above at the time of the crime