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Prisoners' Advice Service

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Prisoners' Advice Service
Founded1991
TypeNGO
3180659
Registration no.1054495
Location
  • PO Box 46199 London EC1M, UK
Area served
England & Wales
Revenuecharitable donations
Websitehttp://www.prisonersadvice.org.uk/

Prisoners' Advice Service (PAS) is a registered charity that offers free legal advice and support to adult prisoners throughout England and Wales regarding their human and legal rights, the conditions of their imprisonment and the application of Prison Law and the Prison Rules.

PAS was set up in 1991 by organisations working with prisoners, including Liberty, the Howard League for Penal Reform and Nacro.

Objectives

The charitable aims of PAS, as set out in its Memorandum of Association, are:

I. To relieve and rehabilitate persons held in penal establishments in the United Kingdom.

II. To advance education and relieve poverty among the aforesaid persons and the families of dependants of such persons particularly by the provision of a free service of legal and other advice.

III. The advancement of education of the public, and in particular members of the legal profession, in relation to the law relating to the rights of prisoners (which expression shall mean persons who are suffering or have suffered a legal restriction on their liberty in any penal or correctional establishment or through any means whatsoever) and mentally disordered patients within the scope of Part III of the Mental Health Act 1983 and the rights of the families and dependants.

IV. The relief of persons in the United Kingdom who are in a condition of need, hardship and distress.

The main activity of PAS is to provide free legal advice and information to prisoners in England and Wales regarding their rights, particularly concerning the application of the Prison Rules and the conditions of imprisonment. PAS takes up prisoners' complaints about their treatment within the prison system on an individual and confidential basis, taking legal action where appropriate.

Services Provided

Telephone Advice Line

Prisoners' Advice Service provides telephone access to legal advice, as well as assistance when human rights have been violated, abused or ignored. The Advice Line received 25,294 phone calls from prisoners across England and Wales over the course of 2017-18.[citation needed]

Letters Clinics

Letters Clinics provide prisoners with a second means of receiving legal advice. Prisoners are able to correspond confidentially with PAS' Caseworkers. To accommodate the large numbers of letters received by PAS, students at various universities, as well as numerous corporate legal departments, now run Letters Clinics for PAS on a pro bono basis.[citation needed]

A young female prisoner writing a letter in her cell. HMP Styal.

Outreach Clinics

Outreach Clinics are run by PAS Caseworkers as a means of bringing legal advice directly into prisons. In 2017/18, PAS delivered 105 legal advice Outreach Clinics, providing one-to-one advice or education to approximately 920 prisoners across 21 prisons: HMPs Belmarsh, Brixton, Bronzefield, Downview, Eastwood Park, Erlestoke, Guys Marsh, High Down, Huntercombe, Isis, Kirkham, Lewes, Leyhill, Manchester, New Hall, Pentonville, Send, Styal, Thameside, Wandsworth and Warren Hill.

Self Help Toolkits

In 2013, PAS created a range of Self Help Toolkits as a means of helping prisoners to understand, or undertake, certain, simpler, legal procedures for themselves. Sent to 117 prison libraries across England and Wales, the set of 10 kits were written and designed by PAS’ Caseworkers and are also available in Easy Read versions for those with low literacy levels, or whose first language is not English.

PAS produces a quarterly Prisoners’ Legal Rights Bulletin, which shares information about key cases and changes in Prison Law. The bulletins are available to all by subscription and are available to prisoners at no cost.

Casework

PAS also represents prisoners, taking legal action against prisons where cases merit it. PAS aids prisoners in pursuing a variety of cases, including judicial review cases and parole hearings. In doing so, the charity ensures that prisons in England and Wales are made aware that they cannot get away with abusing, or ignoring, prisoners’ rights, and we influence policy in the longer term. Over the last five years, 2012 to 2017, PAS has successfully represented prisoners against 60 prisons across England and Wales, forcing them to acknowledge the rights of inmates. In 2017/18, PAS opened 79 cases on prisoners' behalf.

PAS' work with women prisoners

Much of PAS' work focuses specifically on women, as women prisoners often face unique challenges and inequalities. Women require specialist attention in prison because around two thirds have dependent children and many have, themselves, been the victims of crime and abuse. Women are also subject to short custodial sentences for minor crimes such as Council Tax evasion or shoplifting. These can, nevertheless, cause women to lose their jobs – or have children taken into care. In addition, with so few women’s prisons in England and Wales, women are often incarcerated hundreds of miles from home and family.[1]

A female prisoner with her three month old baby in the mother and baby unit.

In 2016-17, 11% of all calls to PAS’ Advice Line were from women, who constitute only 5% of the prison population as a whole. [2] Often the Article 8 rights (of the European Convention on Human Rights) of the women and their children to a “private and family life” are ignored. Furthermore, women with children over the age of 16 are frequently denied Childcare Resettlement Leave, despite the fact that only persons over 18 are permitted to attend prison unaccompanied by an adult.

Much of the work PAS does with women prisoners is to provide mothers with the ability to assert their legal rights in relation to their children and engage effectively in Family Law proceedings, despite being imprisoned. The aim is to reduce the separation of children permanently or temporarily from their families and to help mothers to secure better long-term living arrangements for their children during their imprisonment. This then enables women to maintain as active a role as possible in their children’s lives. Additionally, PAS' Caseworkers take steps to ensure that mothers being released from prison are housed with their children.

Over the course of 2017-18, PAS delivered 42 Outreach Clinics in six women’s prisons: HMPs Downview, Send and Bronzefield (all in Surrey), HMP New Hall (in West Yorkshire), HMP Eastwood Park (in Gloucestershire), and HMP Styal (in Cheshire).  Overall, we helped 339 women prisoners face-to-face in the past year through Outreach Clinics, and a further 235 via our Advice Line and Letters Clinics.  21 cases were opened on behalf of female prisoners over the course of the year.  

For women prisoners making use of PAS’ Prison and Family Law advice, there is a better chance of maintaining good mental health and of lowering delinquency and truancy rates amongst their children.

PAS' work with other vulnerable groups

Race and religious minorities

A Muslin prisoner prays on his matt inside his cell at Wandsworth prison.

Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) prisoners are disproportionately represented in the prison system in England and Wales, making up 26% of the prison population compared to 14% of the general population. [3] They are further discriminated against while in prison, facing unequal and unfavorable treatment from other prisoners as well as from prison staff. Prisoners of minority religions also face discrimination, most often being denied their right to freely practice their religion. Some religious practices require accommodations in prison, which prisoners are at times denied. PAS' Race and Religious Discrimination Caseworker strives to counter discrimination in prison and advises and represents prisoners who fall victim to unequal treatment.

Older and disabled prisoners

As many prisons in the United Kingdom were originally designed for young men, they often lack the necessary policies and facilities to meet the due needs of older prisoners, prisoners with a mental and/or physical disability, or prisoners with acute, or chronic, medical conditions. In addition, prisons are currently contending with the issue of the growing population of older prisoners. People aged 60 and older are the fastest-growing age group in the prison estate. [4] Given these unique challenges, the advanced level of legal expertise at PAS enables the organization to use various pieces of legislation to uphold the rights of older and disabled prisoners. Using legislation, PAS is able to attain resources such as adjustments, auxiliary aids and equal access to healthcare for prisoners who need them. PAS works with older prisoners who are given only limited access to work and require more specialized healthcare for chronic conditions. In working with disabled prisoners, PAS advises and represents those who may lack accommodation and adjustments, which can exclude them from prison and educational activities.

Two elderly and disabled prisoners walking down 'A' wing of HMP Littlehey.

LGBTQ+ prisoners

A new focus area for Prisoners' Advice Service is upholding the rights of LGBTQ+ prisoners. LGBTQ+ prisoners are especially vulnerable to discrimination, sexual assault and exploitation in prison, from which all prisoners should be protected. For transgender prisoners, discrimination can be as extreme as being placed in solitary confinement as a means to protect them. Additionally, transgender prisoners must prove themselves to be transgender, which is often emotionally traumatic. At times, despite doing all that is required in order to identify as another gender, transgender prisoners are nevertheless wrongly allocated to prisons that do not match their gender identity. Such living conditions are detrimental to mental health. PAS has numerous programs that have been designed specifically for LGBTQ+ prisoners. A primary service offered by PAS is their outreach clinics program. By teaching LGBTQ+ prisoners about their rights and how to navigate the complaints system, PAS empowers LGBTQ+ prisoners and offers means to address the issues they may face while in prison. In-person legal clinics allow PAS caseworkers to understand the core issues that are facing LGBTQ+ prisoners. Furthermore, PAS is soon to release a Self Help Toolkit designed specifically for LGBTQ+ prisoners as an additional means to undertake some legal processes by themselves.

References

  1. ^ http://www.womeninprison.org.uk/research/key-facts.php
  2. ^ http://www.prisonersadvice.org.uk/information/pas-work-with-women-prisoners/
  3. ^ http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Bromley%20Briefings/Autumn%202017%20factfile.pdf
  4. ^ http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Bromley%20Briefings/Autumn%202017%20factfile.pdf

Online

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