How we check reports
Every card says where it came from. That is the product.
Counted live. 156 this week. No names, no prisoner numbers.
Who said it stays labelled
Facts taken from HMPPS / GOV.UK and dated. If the rule changes, this layer changes.
Our plain-English guide. Useful, but not a promise from the prison.
What families reported: waits, visits, canteen, signal. Not a promise. Not a forum.
ringyard, a paid landline for prison calls, shown in Phones on prison pages and phone guides. PRSN, a collaboration partner that publishes prison reports and sentencing news, shown in guides and tools. Never mixed into Official cards. Never required.
The five-report rule
A typical wait appears once five families have reported it. Until then you see how many have, not a guess.
- A range is the 25th to 75th percentile of days families reported. It only appears once two families have reported it.
- A “still true” after the latest report counts as an observation at half weight for freshness.
- “Not anymore” twice marks a fact as questioned. The range is never rewritten.
We hold the words, not the wait
A note with a phone number, an email, a link, abuse or a prison number.
A note that might name someone, or accuse someone, waits for a person to read it before it goes up. Words held back are dropped after 30 days if nobody publishes them.
The wait or status stays up, whatever happens to the words.
If something on a page should not be there, write to hello@prisoncheck.co.uk and we will take it down.
Partners, only where they help
ringyard is a paid landline for prison calls. PRSN is a collaboration partner that publishes prison reports and sentencing news. Both are labelled Partner wherever they appear.
ringyard: Phones on prison pages, phone guides
PRSN: Guides and tools, release calculator
Mixed into Official cards
Required to use the site
The monthly update can include a short, clearly marked partner box. Emails that are only about a partner need their own tick, never pre-ticked.
Where the gaps are
104 of 123 prisons have two or more family reports.
Covered 104One report 6None 13
130 families looked at HMP/YOI Parc this week. Nobody has said how long the first visit took since 10 October.
Add a reportResearch with us
Studying prison family life, visits or prison phones? Start with the question families want answered.
Tell us your question and who the findings are for: a university, a charity or a policy team.
Counts and ranges only. Never notes, names or anything that could point to a family.
Findings come back to families, in plain words, on this page.
After a report, families can also say how they’re related to the person inside and whether children at home are waiting for contact, by age group. It’s optional and only ever shared as totals from five or more families.
Family reports are what people typed in, not an HMPPS service level. No data sales.
PrisonCheck submissions are voluntary and self-selected and therefore should not be assumed to represent the experiences of all prisoners, families or visitors. Old experiences are kept, but they do not stand in for the current picture.