A missed opportunity
Prisons too often fail to understand and develop the potential benefits of family contact, according to a report published yesterday (17 March 2026). The findings from HM Inspectorate of Prisons reveal that jails are not doing enough to help maintain these essential relationships, despite compelling evidence that they can improve the safety of prisoners and reduce the risk that they will reoffend.
The thematic review “Safety, well-being and hope: The untapped potential of family contact in prisons” draws on fieldwork carried out in eight prisons where inspectors had previously identified positive work with families. Although there was some excellent practice in these jails, it rarely formed part of a wider, strategic approach to involve families in supporting good behaviour and rehabilitation.
There has been increasing focus on families, recognising that their involvement in prisoners’ lives contributes to safer and more rehabilitation-focused prison cultures since the Farmer Review in 2017. Despite all the good intentions, the Inspectorate has found very few examples of prisons making an active effort to involve families in the intervening years.
This thematic review delves more deeply into the area of family contact to build on existing evidence. Inspectors intentionally visited prisons with positive recent findings for family provision to find out what was working well, and what lessons could be shared. They looked at a range of areas, including how staff involved families in prisoner safety and preparation for release, specialist family ties work, different means of contact (including visits), and the overall leadership focus on family work.
The review is based on the data from 38 inspection reports in the year 2024/25 in addition to new fieldwork at eight prisons.
The critical role of families
This thematic review is a powerful illustration of the critical role that families and friends play in the lives of prisoners: inspectors found that for many, family relationships were so important that they influenced virtually every aspect of prison life.
Inspectors report numerous, “highly compelling” accounts of how families supported mental and physical well-being, a sense of purpose and a desire to change.
The report does contain a chapter (Section 4) illustrating positive initiatives to enhance family relationships.
- Parc has a dedicated family unit, where staff from the family provider, Invisible Walls, worked alongside prison officers. The unit holds up to 60 men who were given extra support to develop and sustain relationships with their children.
- Durham has a “father and child” visits schemes which helps men in prison maintain relationships with their children.
- Acorn House unit at Askham Grange, separate accommodation in the prison grounds, provides a relaxed, domestic environment. Women can spend the whole day with their families and take part in everyday activities such as cooking and eating together.
- At Grendon, therapeutic group meetings routinely include discussion of family concerns and attachments. Prisoners explore conflicts, relationship challenges and offences, and how to have difficult conversations with significant people outside prison. Families are also encouraged, where appropriate, to attend end of therapy events at the jail.
- Low Newton & Askham Grange use release on temporary licence (ROTL) to help women maintain family relationships.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Nevertheless, these initiatives remain outliers. Overall, the inspectorate found that:
“Too many jails were failing to get the basics right, making it difficult for families to book visits, get to the establishment, and access financial support. When prisoners first arrived in jail it took too long for family members to find out where they were held and to be able to contact them – at a time when prisoners were often at their most vulnerable. Prisons rarely involved families in supporting men and women at risk of self-harm or violence, and concerningly, families could not always get through to prisons by telephone to tell them about welfare and safety concerns. Disappointingly, release on temporary licence was not used effectively to support family contact and rehabilitation in any of the men’s prisons inspectors visited.
In general, the prisons relied heavily on external providers and volunteers to lead family provision, and it was too often seen as a ‘nice to have’ rather than an essential element in a prisoner’s journey through custody and towards resettlement. ”
The report lists six priority concerns:
- Family work was largely seen as the responsibility of the contracted family provider, rather than a joint endeavour with the prison. Prison leaders did not always understand the importance and quality of family ties in motivating good behaviour in their prisons.
- Specialist family provision was not accessible to all prisoners who needed it. Precarious funding meant that services were often too reliant on goodwill and volunteers.
- Prisons were often failing to get the basics right in relation to visits. Problems included inefficient booking systems, incorrect visiting times on prison websites, insensitive and excessive searching, and visits often starting late.
- Not enough was done to support family contact during the early days in custody. The system to help families locate prisoners was slow and there were frequent delays in approving phone numbers for prisoners’ accounts.
- Families were rarely involved in supporting prisoners at risk of self-harm or violence, despite evidence that family contact can have substantial impact on mental health and behaviour. Some prisoners were unaware that family involvement was a possibility.
- HM Prison and Probation Service’s self-assessment system did not provide adequate assurance or sufficiently drive improvement.
Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here
