Prison Law

The following information is also available
as a leaflet that can be downloaded.

Click to download our prison law PDF

Time inside can be tough both for the prisoner and for friends and family and we at Pickup & Scott are aware of the confusion and distress that imprisonment can cause for all parties concerned.

We have experience of dealing with all aspects of criminal law, from police station to sentence, including thorough investigation, clear advice and professional representation, and our specialist Prison Law department can provide advice and assistance in all areas of Prison Law.

Our prison law team also brings together specialist prison law expertise with senior practitioners in the fields of mental health, immigration and public law, allowing us to give specialist advice on the wide variety of legal problems which prisoners may experience.

We look after the rights of all prisoners, whether they are long-term or only recently detained.

Free Legal Aid, or Public Funding, is usually available so that all advice to the prisoner is given free of charge.  Our objective is to reply to all letters received within 7 days (all correspondence is strictly confidential), to visit the prisoner at the earliest available Legal Visits opportunity, and to keep in touch with you and keep you informed at all times.

We can help you with anything that concerns you including:

1. Prison Discipline – we can give advice about informal discipline hearings before the Governor and represent you in person in formal adjudications before an Outside Adjudicator
2. Categorisation, Allocation & Sentence Planning/calculations
3. The Prison Regime :
1. Rules & conditions – Requests & Complaints
2. Visits
3. Correspondence
4. Searches
5. MDT/VDT’s
6. Healthcare/Mental Health
4. Early Release & Parole
1. Tariff challenges & queries
2. Determinate & Indeterminate Sentences
3. Extended Sentences
4. Challenging adverse Parole decisions
5. Written Representations
6. Licence Recall & conditions
7. Parole Board Reviews & Hearings
8. Oral Hearings
9. Judicial Reviews & Human Rights Act 1998
5. Mother & Child - considering the rights of female prisoners with young children
6. Foreign National Prisoners - including deportation issues