PPO Covid-19 June 30 Update

From 6 July 2020 the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will be able to return to the office building for the first time since lockdown. A small number of staff will begin printing letters to send to those in prison. We will follow the social distancing guidelines and ensure the safety of our staff. It is important to note we will not be returning original documents to prisoners.

Over the past few months we have continued to investigate deaths in prison and complaints from those in detention. Although we have been unable to visit prisons to carry out interviews, we have been able to conduct interviews via video and telephone. We have established a new scanning solution to access letters from those in prison while we have not been able to enter our office building. We have also been using the ‘Email a Prisoner’ service to send some letters to those in prison where appropriate. Now that a small number of staff are able to go back into the building, we will also be able to start writing directly to prisoners.