About the Prison Reform Trust#
The Prison Reform Trust has worked since 1981 for what it calls a just, humane and effective penal system. It researches and campaigns on prison conditions and the use of imprisonment, takes no government funding, and runs an advice and information service for people in prison. Its Prisoner Policy Network, started in 2018, is a free correspondence network that passes the views of prisoners, former prisoners and families to policymakers, anonymously unless a member objects.
Asking it a question from prison#
The advice and information page describes three routes:
- Freephone, for people in prison, open on Monday afternoon and on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Outside those hours you can leave your name, prison number, prison and question, and messages are picked up on weekdays. Hours can change with staffing.
- Freepost: Prison Reform Trust, FREEPOST ND 6125, London EC1B 1PN, which costs a prisoner nothing to use.
- Email, which it asks families and friends to use, to keep the phone line free for calls from prison.
The trust also publishes more than fifty printable guides on parts of prison life, from categorisation and parole to prison records, and families can print them or send an order form in so a prisoner can request copies.
What it publishes that touches on a name#
There is no guide to changing your name on the site. Three things come close.
The prison order on names. Its prison rules page lists Prison Service Order 4455, on requests from prisoners to change their name, as one of the orders worth knowing, with a link to GOV.UK's list of current orders. That order, from 2003, says there is no legal limit on a prisoner's right to change their name, but the prison need not recognise it. A change by deed poll should generally be acknowledged, and a governor may refuse one only in exceptional cases, such as an offensive name. Once recognised, the new name goes on prison records with the old one kept as an alias, the prison number stays the same, and probation and the police are told. Post can be sent and received in a new name either way.
ID and a bank account before release. Its resettlement guide explains the New Futures Network's ID and Banking Programme, run in some prisons for people with a release date between six weeks and six months away. Staff can help you get a birth certificate, driving licence, marriage certificate or other documents and open an account with one of the banks in the scheme. That matters if you change your name: every document you get afterwards will need the deed poll alongside it, and some banks want photo ID in the new name.
Registration after a sex offence. Its booklet for people on licence for a sex offence (March 2022) says your first notification lists every name you have used, and that if any detail changes you have three days to tell the police. Section 84 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 counts those days from when you start using the new name.
Where to go next#
The prison order applies in England and Wales. For the rules on licence, probation and criminal record checks, start with Can I change my name if I have a criminal record?. Proof of a name change explains what organisations accept, and the bank comparison shows which want ID in the new name. For the other charities in this field, see charities for people with a criminal record.
This page describes what the Prison Reform Trust publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. The Prison Reform Trust has not reviewed it, and listing it here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
