Birmingham Family
Case Study

A mother and father entered the Visitors’ Centre on an afternoon enquiring about their son who had recently come into the prison. They had telephoned the booking line the day before but were unsuccessful in booking a visit as their son had not filled in the necessary paperwork with their names, addresses, dates of birth and relationship to him to be added to his visiting list.

As this had been the first time their son had ever been to prison, they came to the Visitors’ Centre in person to get some more information on the visiting procedure, the rules and regulations of the prison, and also to find out again whether their names had been added to the system.

Firstly, we took the prisoners details from the visitors, including his full name, prison number and the names of the visitors and their dates of birth. As their details had been updated onto the system we were able to book a visit for the following evening, for which they were very grateful.

On return of their visit, a confirmation slip was provided to them with an information pack, a list of all the visiting times that we offer as well as explaining to them the rules about identification needed, the visits procedure, how to send in letters and postal orders.

After booking the visit and going through these details the mother and father explained how they felt they had a better understanding of what they had to do to visit their son and were a lot more reassured about visiting and keeping as regular contact with him as they could whilst he was in prison.