Welcome to the PPO

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Click here to read about COVID-19 PPO Fatal Incident Investigations

The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) carries out independent investigations into complaints and deaths in custody. The detailed roles and responsibilities of the PPO are set out in our office’s Terms of Reference. The PPO has three main duties:

• to investigate complaints made by prisoners, young people in detention (prisons and secure training centres), offenders under probation supervision and individuals detained under immigration powers (detained individuals)
• to investigate deaths of prisoners, young people in detention, approved premises’ residents and detained individuals due to any cause, including any apparent suicides and natural causes
• to investigate deaths of recently released prisoners, using the PPO’s discretionary powers

The purpose of these investigations is to understand what happened, to correct injustices and to identify learning for the organisations whose actions we oversee so that the PPO makes a significant contribution to safer, fairer custody and offender supervision.