Reviews Policy
The Criminal Justice Hub (CJH) website has a number of areas where you can contribute to the site. You can review and rate almost any Criminal Justice service, including prisons, police forces and probation offices. We welcome feedback, whether you, a friend or a family member were a service user, a customer or just visiting.
Contributions to this website are moderated, meaning they are checked to make sure they do not break our rules before they are published. We employ the services of a trusted third party to help us do this. You will need to keep your contributions constructive, relevant and civil. The rules and guidelines below are to protect both you and the CJH, and our moderators will not publish contributions they deem to break the rules.
Additionally, you can read the Conviction website and for more detailed information see the Conviction website complaints policy.
Reviewing Criminal Justice services (including prisons, police forces and probation offices)
The service you receive from the criminal justice system will never be adversely affected by your feedback on hospitals, prisons, police forces and probation offices or any other criminal justice provider and you can review anonymously if you wish. You should respect the anonymity of other service users and staff at the service you are reviewing by not using their names.
The “Leave review” feature available on many criminal justice service provider profiles on the CJH website allows you to review the service you received or the service you witnessed a friend or a family member receiving. This is not a formal complaint procedure and if you wish to make a complaint you should read the departments or services guide to making a complaint.
Criminal justice agencies and providers are not obliged to read or respond to reviews, though many do. If you want a reply to your feedback you should contact the provider of the criminal justice service directly or alternatively contact the commissioner of the service.
You can leave a review about any aspect of your experience using a criminal justice service. This includes feedback on your medical care and clinical staff, as well as on the wider organisation environment, service and supporting staff you encountered.
Feedback should be made within the “Leave Review” area of the CJH service provider profile page. This area is not suitable for making general political points about criminal justice services. Feedback from members of staff will not be accepted. Service providers may promote the ratings and reviews service and encourage you to leave reviews. If service providers are promoting the ratings and review service they must do so equally and openly and must not ask about the content of your review, make any aspect of your care conditional upon you giving a review (or the content of it) or solicit positive-only reviews. Service providers must not post reviews on behalf of offenders, their friends or family members.
Ratings and reviews must be about events within the past 2 years. Once the event described in a review we’ve published is more than 2 years old, it may be removed from the service’s profile, along with any associated ratings and information.
Complaining about another person’s review
If you think someone’s contribution to the website breaks our rules you can alert one of our moderators by selecting the “Report as unsuitable” link directly beneath the review. Reporting a review will not delete it but will temporarily remove it and ensure we look at it as soon as possible. The moderators will then decide whether to remove it permanently or reinstate it.
The CJH website does not remove reviews in situations where organisations and reviewers disagree about the facts disclosed in a review. Our policy is to be impartial and it is not possible to determine what happened or who is right about the reviewer’s experience.
Relevance, civility and decency
Relevance: reviews must be relevant to the experience with the associated provider.
Be civil: please ensure that your contributions are respectful of others. We will remove contributions that are unlawful, harassing, abusive, threatening, obscene, sexually suggestive, racist, homophobic or sexist, or that incite or promote hatred of any group or individual.
Writing in capitals: do not overuse capital letters – on the internet this is regarded as “shouting” and many people find it offensive.
Be informative: ensure your review has enough information to describe your experience, and if you are reviewing a prison, police force, probation office or community criminal justice service, provide enough information to assist someone else in making decisions about the service. Reviews deemed uninformative by our moderators may not be published.
Abusive language: reviews containing swearing will not be published.
English: all reviews on the website must be made in English. Reviews in other languages will not be published. (We will accept Welsh language reviews for services provided in Wales.)
Stereotypes: reviews that stereotype sections of society will not be published.
Multiple posts: duplicate reviews or repeats will not be published. Users should only post one review per experience.
Privacy and confidentiality
The CJH website uses a trusted third-party service to provide moderation services, subject to a contract with us. This company is based in the UK and is required to keep your details confidential and secure, in keeping with our own privacy policy.
For the CJH website to publish your review you will need to be either logged in to your CJH website account or provide a valid email address where we can contact you. When you submit your review, we will also see your IP address. These details are kept confidential and will be used by CJH staff and the moderation service provider to process your submission. The CJH website uses your email address to contact you:
- to let you know your review has been published, or if it has breached this policy
- if we need to clarify an aspect of your review
- if your review gives us cause for concern about your wellbeing or that of someone else. We may send you information about how to access appropriate support
The CJH website will only use your details for the purposes of dealing with your enquiry, training, quality monitoring or evaluating the services we provide. We will not pass on your details to anyone else without your express permission except in exceptional circumstances. Examples of this might include anyone reporting serious self-harm or posing a threat to others, or children contacting us and sharing serious issues.
Whether you are speaking for yourself, a friend or a family member, do not name the individuals you are talking about. If you’re leaving a review on another person’s behalf, it is best to talk of “my husband” or “my uncle” and so on to help protect their privacy.
Personal information
To help protect your privacy, any information you contribute that reveals personal information, such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, Twitter handles, addresses and so on will be removed. Any posts attempting to use the site to exchange personal information or arrange meetings with another user will not be published.
The personal information you share will be held by us for up to 2 years so that we can get in touch with you about what you have written and so you can contact us to change or remove your review. When we remove the review from our site due to the events occurring over 2 years ago, we also remove all the personal information we hold in connection with it.
When you write a review and wish to remain anonymous we will not publish your personal details on the website or pass them to the organisation you are reviewing, except in the exceptional circumstances described above. You should be aware your reviews may allow the provider to guess who you are even when you post anonymously. We do not allow the provider to reveal your identity in any response they submit for publication on this website.
Screen names, nicknames and impersonation
Names used on the CJH website are moderated. When selecting a name to be displayed on the website make sure you choose one that is not rude, offensive or aimed at impersonating another person.
Naming businesses: please avoid naming businesses or commercial services in your review. Any reviews breaching this rule will not be published.
Under-16s: if you’re under 16 ensure you have permission from a parent or guardian before posting on the CJH website.
Health advice, medical products and commercial activity
Reviews that glamourise smoking, drug use or drinking, or that promote a poor moral example will be removed.
Asking for and giving specific medical or health advice is not permitted.
Reviews deemed to be advertising a product or service will not be published.
We may remove reviews that reference specific medical products or medicines if the context is not appropriate.
Irrespective of their contents, we will not publish any reviews if we know or reasonably suspect they have been made following financial or any other inducement; by service providers or members of staff; or subject to undue influence from service providers.
Legal issues, criminal activity or negligence
Current court cases and court injunctions: contempt of court rules mean you cannot leave reviews that could prejudice the outcome of a court case or Regulatory Body hearing. Reviews about something that subsequently becomes the subject of a court case or hearing will also be removed if they risk being in contempt of court. Contributions that break a court injunction will be removed.
Clinical negligence or criminal activity: reviews that give an account of clinical negligence will not be published. If you have an allegation of clinical negligence please use the NHS complaints procedure. Accusations of criminal activity will not be published. If you believe that criminal activity is or has taken place at an organisation please contact the police or the organisation directly.
Defamation: defamation is a complex area. Defamation may occur when someone makes a statement that causes serious harm to a person’s reputation. The law allows you to post reviews containing your honestly held opinion, provided you identify the facts on which you are expressing your opinion. Posting untrue statements is against the law if they cause serious harm to a person’s reputation or are likely to do so. We remove reviews where we judge there is not a lawful basis for their publication.
Disclaimer: this definition is not to be regarded as a statement of the law nor should it be relied upon to make any judgement as to whether the content is potentially defamatory. It is up to you to decide whether to take specific legal advice.
Threats: reviews containing threats of public fear, terrorism or threats towards any individual are not permitted.
Copyright: ensure that you own the copyright to any material you put on the site – especially if you have copied it from another source. If we’re in doubt about the ownership of content we will remove it from the site.
Further information
Copyright of your contributions
Your contributions to the CJH website are published to the general public. In submitting your reviews you assign all rights to the CJH website for use and publication of your contribution (further information can be found in terms and conditions). If you’re unwilling to grant the CJH website copyright to your contribution you should not submit it to the site.
Action we may take
A breach of any of our rules can lead to your review being rejected. Repeated or serious breaches of our rules may lead to the CJH website blocking contributions from your email address or suspending your CJH website account. The CJH website reserves the right to delete any content at any time for any reason and is under no obligation to publish any contributions. The CJH website reserves the right to alter or update the house rules or terms and conditions at any time.