§ Lord Aveburyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will amend Prison Standing Order 5B, paragraph 29, so as to allow prisoners to communicate with box number addresses belonging to legal organisations. [HL3633]
§ Lord Williams of MostynWe have no plans to amend this provision. Under paragraph 29 of Standing Order 5B, governors have the authority to stop prisoners from writing to a Post Office box. Prisons must be able to identify and check the recipients of prisoners' correspondence, particularly in the case of high risk prisoners and sex offenders.
While this provision will more often apply to individuals using PO box numbers, it may also be applied to organisations where the governor considers there to be a risk. Some organisations, for example, operate penpal schemes for prisoners to make contact with people on the outside. Such schemes may be susceptible to infiltration by sex offenders and paedophiles seeking to network and make contact with vulnerable people. These schemes therefore need to be thoroughly vetted. Where the organisations concerned are not able to do this, and the use of a box number precludes prisons from making appropriate checks on the recipients, a governor is within his or her rights to stop prisoners writing to the organisation.
However, in the case of legal practitioners and organisations, governors, in keeping with the principle that prisoners should have unfettered access to the legal process, should generally allow the use of a box number, although the number of legal practitioners and organisations which do this is likely to be very small.