Send legal mail to prisons

Use this service to create barcodes and addresses to display in your:

• legal correspondence (Rule 39 mail) if you're the legal adviser of the recipient
• confidential access mail if your organisation or role is listed in the guidance on monitoring and managing prisoner communications (PSI 04/2016)

Each barcode is unique and confirms to prison mailroom staff that you're an approved sender.

What you'll need

To access this service you'll need a Criminal Justice Secure Mail (CJSM) email address which ends 'cjsm.net'.

You can check if your organisation has already joined CJSM, or apply to join.

You'll also need:

• the names of your recipients
• the prison numbers or date of births of your recipients
• a printer, A4 paper and envelopes with windows

Prisons you can send mail to

You can use this service to send legal or confidential mail to any prison in England and Wales, including the private prison estate.

Other ways to send legal mail

If you are not eligible to use this service, you can still send legal mail to a prisoner. To do this, the envelope with the legal mail must include:

• the prisoner's name and prison number
• your address and contact phone number
• the words 'Prison Rule 39'
• your signature

The envelope with the legal mail must be placed in another envelope that is addressed to the prison.