I’ve previously written about the rules concerning such things as visits and letters to prisoners. These posts were quite widely read but there have been a number of important changes over the past couple of years so I thought I should post a short update.
It used to be the case that you could only visit a convicted prisoner if they sent you a Visiting Order. This is no longer the case. Most prisons (including HMP Wakefield from last year) have introduced a new booking procedure where the prisoner adds someone to their approved visitors list and the visitor can then book a visit online via prisonvisits.service.gov.uk whenever they want. It is no longer necessary for the prisoner to send a visiting order at all. In addition, when this system was introduced, everyone who had previously visited a prisoner at their current establishment was added to the approved visitors list automatically so that prisoners don’t have to add a person to their list if they have already had visits with them.
Secondly, a new system for sending money to prisoners has also been introduced. Using gov.uk/send-prisoner-money you can make a wire transfer of money to a prisoner. The advantage of this over previous methods, is that it is free (as opposed to Postal Orders which tend to cost around 10% extra), it is instant (as opposed to cheques which still take around a month to be cleared into a prisoner’s account for them to use), and it is secure (as opposed to cash which has a habit of going missing somewhere between being posted and being received by the prisoner).
It seems that the prison service is finally accepting that it cannot resist the twenty-first century. Hope that info helps, folks.
First thought is that this is a great reform. Can’t see a downside to the money transfer (!) but keep us all informed how the new visiting regime works out. Can you peruse pics sent on twitter?
First thought is that this is a great reform. Can’t see a downside to the money transfer (!) but keep us all informed how the new visiting regime works out. Can you peruse pics sent on twitter?