Unprecedented challenges

The report starts by setting out the (rather dismal) context of the current state of the criminal justice system with the prison population at an all-time high and delays in the courts at record levels. It also draws attention to a recent survey by the APL which concluded that funding for legal aid work with prisoners has become unsustainable to the point where three-quarters of prison lawyers do not think they will be doing prison law legal aid work in three years’ time. Due to reductions in the scope of what legal aid work covers in the last decade, almost all cases for people in prison have a bearing on their liberty.

These problems are compounded by the increasing difficulties lawyers are experiencing in trying to see their their clients. This is despite the fact that the right of a lawyer to see their client is a fundamental right that has long been protected in law. At common law, it falls under the right to access to the courts, which is a constitutional right.

Access difficulties

This report shows that lawyers are still struggling to get access to their clients, both via video links and in person, with some prisons point-blank refusing to allow lawyers to use their video link facilities. The APL has identified 16 prisons that have told practitioners that they do not offer video links to solicitors.

Others have said they can only be used between Friday and Monday, or they offer appointments weeks or even months away. In a number of prisons, in-person visits are extremely limited, with a slot just once a week, sometimes only in a busy visiting hall with no privacy for confidential discussions.

In some instances, even when a visit occurs in person, there are huge difficulties on the day, including being denied authorised laptops or the person being brought to the visit late, or not at all, due to staff shortages or other issues in the prison.

Practitioners have experienced difficulties in getting through to prisons to book visits – there is no central system with, as many readers will know, every prison being different.

The survey of prison lawyers for this report produced 78 examples of their experiences in seeking visits by video link or in person across 46 jails in England and Wales.

The examples included experiences between August 2022 and January 2024, with the vast majority occurring in 2023. Key concerns included:

• Prisons providing no video links for solicitors at all: 34 examples were provided where practitioners were advised there were no links for solicitors across 16 prisons.
• Limited availability for video links: 25 examples were provided across 18 prisons where practitioners were told that they could book a video link but would have to wait for excessive periods of time.
• Limited availability for in person visits:13 examples were provided across 12 prisons where in person visits were extremely limited.
• Ineffective visits: 6 examples across 6 different prisons were provided where visits had been completely ineffective because the client was not produced, or a laptop not allowed in.

Of course, it does not have to be this way. The survey also produced two examples where prison visits can be easily booked across two prisons.

The 16 prisons where lawyers were told there were no video links available for solicitors were:

• Aylesbury
• Downview
• Erlestoke
• Guys Marsh
• Highpoint
• Hindley
• Humber
• Lancaster Farms
• Northumberland
• Onley
• Portland
• Ranby
• Risley
• Swaleside
• The Mount
• Wymott

A further 18 prisons were identified where lawyers could book video link sessions but the waiting time was excessive – in many cases the session could only happen after a client’s hearing, rendering it useless.

Recommendations

The APL calls for urgent steps to ensure that people in prison can have proper access to legal representation and, indeed, justice. They highlight three simple priorities:

1. Lawyers ought to be able to find out how to book a visit easily.
2. Confidential video links and in person visits should be available within a reasonable period of time in every prison.
3. Prisons ought to prioritise legal visits to ensure they work smoothly once booked.

Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here