You’ll normally hand outgoing letters in at the wing office. The prison provides paper, a stamp and an envelope for one outgoing letter a week, though plenty of prisoners write far more and buy their own stationery. Letters must be handed in unsealed, with your name, wing, cell number and prison number on the envelope. Ordinary letters can be read by prison staff; legally privileged correspondence is handled under Prison Rule 39 and can be sealed once an officer is satisfied it’s a genuine legal letter.
The information on this page is based on the law in England & Wales. If you’re in Scotland, click here for the guide for your jurisdiction. (Northern Ireland guide coming soon.)
Incoming post goes through the same security checks and will be opened and examined before it’s handed to you. Legal letters should reach you unopened, as long as your lawyer has followed the correct procedure.
Most prisons now also use an official messaging service called Email a Prisoner (also branded eMates), run by Unilink and used across more than 200 prisons, young offender institutions and immigration removal centres in England and Wales. Family and friends send a message via www.emailaprisoner.com (opens in a new tab) using your name and prison number; it’s printed and delivered to you along with your ordinary mail. In a growing number of prisons you can now reply directly through a wing kiosk or in-cell device; where that isn’t available yet, staff will print the message, you write your reply by hand, and staff scan and send it back – so check what your own establishment offers. The service also has a secure video-calling option in some prisons, alongside the messaging.
For phone calls, you’ll be given a PIN when you arrive, and you’ll need to apply to add numbers to your approved contact list before you can call them – each one is checked, including against victim contact databases, before it’s authorised. Once a number’s approved, you dial in and enter your PIN to connect. In Category C prisons, and a good number of Cat B establishments, phones are now fitted in cells, so you’re not queuing for a handset on the landing; where that hasn’t rolled out yet, you’ll use a shared phone on the wing during unlock periods, and it’ll be switched off overnight. Calls are generally recorded and can be monitored, with the exception of calls to your solicitor, which are legally privileged.
More in this section:
| Accommodation | Cell Life |
| Getting things done | Meals and Food |
| Drugs treatment | Personal clothing and equipment |
| Self Improvement | Learning to read |