Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner - 2016
Prisons
This section outlines the legislation governing the interception of prisoners’ communications
and summarises the key findings from our IOCCO’s 2016 prison inspections.
Overview
The Interception of Communications Commissioner’s non-statutory oversight of the
interception of communications in prisons within England and Wales commenced in 2002.
It was expanded to include Northern Ireland in 2008. IOCCO does not, currently, provide
oversight of interception within Scottish prisons. In the near future, the inspection of all
prisons in the United Kingdom, in relation to their use of investigatory powers, will be
placed on a statutory footing by the Investigatory Powers Act.
The inspections of prisons carried out by my inspectors are based on Prison Rules and
Prison Service Instructions (PSIs). Prison Rule 35A gives any prison Governor the authority
to intercept any communications by any prisoner or class of prisoners, subject to necessity
and proportionality. Prison Rule 81 also gives a Governor the ability to delegate the powers
given to him by the rules to another officer of that prison. In practice, the responsibility
to consider and authorise requests to intercept prisoners’ communications is normally
delegated to the Head of Offender Management team or the Head of Prison Security.
In July 2016, Her Majesty’s Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) issued an updated
Prison Service Instruction called ‘The Interception of Communications in Prisons and
Security Measures’. This introduced a number of improvements to the management of
communications interception in prisons. These included:
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Implementing a new Interception risk assessment / application process.
Introducing electronic monitoring documents.
Introducing a structured management and supervision process.
It was apparent from the inspections conducted after July 2016 that a number of prisons
found it challenging to implement the new Instruction. Prisons officers did not always
understand the new measures, and did not appear to be resourced to implement them.
As a result, my inspectors have frequently been asked to provide guidance on the
implementation of the measures, inspection scores have been weaker, and inspectors
have issued more recommendations.
Inspections and Recommendations
The objective of an inspection is to ensure that:
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all prisons are fully discharging their responsibilities to inform the prisoners that
their communications may be subject to interception;
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all prisoners are aware that confidential communications such as calls to lawyers and
confidential access organisations such as the Samaritans should not be intercepted;
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