Criminal Justice Hub

What Criminal Justice Hub does

Criminal Justice Hub is a volunteer-led, nonprofit public information service operating as a project under Conviction and headquartered in Manchester, United Kingdom. Founded in 2018, the service provides free, plain-English information and practical tools to help people and communities navigate the criminal justice system in England and Wales. It is built on a WordPress-based web platform augmented with interactive tools including a prison directory, a legal aid provider directory covering 3,308 provider offices, a police custody suite directory, a prison release date estimator, a 1,822-entry criminal justice acronyms reference, an MG forms library, and a prison and probation policy library. The service also exposes a Progressive Web App with a Quick Exit safety feature for users in sensitive situations.

The platform aggregates and contextualizes official open government data sourced from the Ministry of Justice (courts, prisons, probation, legal aid statistics) and data.police.uk (44 police forces and 36 monthly crime datasets), all used under the Open Government Licence v3.0. It serves a horizontal audience of people directly affected by the criminal justice system, families and support networks, criminal justice practitioners, researchers and students, and the general public. Content is organized around user needs (arrested, going to court, someone in prison, need legal help) rather than institutional structures, and the service is accessible without registration, with optional accounts for personalized features.

Criminal Justice Hub does not generate commercial revenue. All content, tools, and resources are provided free of charge to users in England and Wales, and the organization operates on grant funding and donations routed through its parent nonprofit, Conviction. Volunteer labor is sourced through the Reach Volunteering platform and spans content design, user research, product management, development, data, accessibility, and quality assurance. The website is openly published on GitHub and continues to operate in an open beta with an embedded user feedback mechanism.

Name

Criminal Justice Hub

Legal name

Criminal Justice Hub

Website

https://criminaljusticehub.org.uk

Company type

Private

Founded year

2018

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Criminal Justice Hub is a volunteer-led, nonprofit public information service that provides free, plain-English guidance and interactive tools to help people, families, practitioners, and researchers navigate the criminal justice system in England and Wales.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Public Criminal Justice Information Services

NAICS

Justice, Public Order, and Safety Activities (9221)

akta.pro primary industry

Community Corrections (Probation, Parole & Reentry) (BPAIAFAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Adult Corrections (Prisons & Jails) (BPAIAFAD), State/Provincial Courts & Judicial Administration (BPAIABAE)

Keywords

• Criminal justice information
• Legal aid directory
• Prison information services
• Public legal guidance
• Justice system data tools

Headquarters

HQ city

Manchester

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Grant funding and donations: As a volunteer-led nonprofit project of Conviction, the service appears to operate on grant funding and donations rather than commercial revenue. The service is free to all users.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Criminal Justice Hub is a free online public information service that consolidates criminal justice information for England and Wales into a single accessible platform. It provides directories of prisons, police forces, police custody suites, and legal aid providers, along with maps, a prison release date estimator, offence classifications, sentencing videos and remarks, an acronyms reference, MG forms, and a prison and probation policy library. The service is offered at no cost to the public.

Product overview

Criminal Justice Hub is a unified public information platform offering clear, practical information about the criminal justice system in England and Wales. The core product consists of plain English guidance organized around user needs (police/courts/prison/legal aid/criminal records) along with interactive tools including directories (prison, legal aid providers, police forces, custody suites), maps (prisons, legal aid providers, custody suites), calculators (prison release date estimator), forms (MG forms library), policy libraries (prison and probation policies), and reference tools (acronyms, offence classifications, sentencing videos). These tools and resources work together to help people affected by the criminal justice system, their families, practitioners, researchers, and the wider public find practical information without needing to understand how the system is organized internally.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Criminal Justice Hub Website Free online public information service that consolidates criminal justice information for England and Wales, with directories, maps, tools, policy libraries, and plain-English guides. Built for affected individuals, families, practitioners, researchers, and the wider public.
• Prison Directory Directory of prisons in England and Wales with details about each facility, aimed at affected individuals, families, and practitioners.
• Prisons Map Interactive map of prisons across England and Wales, used to locate facilities geographically.
• Legal Aid Provider Directory
• Legal Aid Providers Map
• Police Custody Suite Directory
• Police Custody Suites Map Interactive map of police custody suites across England and Wales.
• Police Forces Directory
• Prison and Probation Policy Library
• MG Forms Library
• Criminal Justice Acronyms Reference
• Prison Release Date Estimator
• Offence Classifications
• Sentencing Videos and Remarks
• Criminal Justice Hub Plain-English Guides

Quantifiable outcome

• Service covers the entire criminal justice pathway from arrest through prison and probation to release
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Ten partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• ConvictioncoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCriminal Justice Hub is a project of Conviction. Conviction provides organizational support and governance for the initiative. The relationship enables the volunteer-led project to operate under established nonprofit structure.
• Reach VolunteeringcoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorVolunteer recruitment is handled exclusively through Reach Volunteering. All volunteer role advertisements and applications are managed through this platform rather than direct applications.
• Ministry of JusticecoreOthersSource of official prisons data, courts data, probation data, and legal aid data displayed on the service. Data is used under Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Police UK (data.police.uk)coreOthersProvides street-level crime data, police force information, and statistical data through API integration. Covers 44 police forces with 36 monthly datasets available.
• Practice Plus Group Health and Rehabilitation Services LimitedminorOthersHealthcare provider for HMP Belmarsh, registered with CQC from 1 June 2023. Listed as the current provider in prison directory information.
• Prison Advice and Care Trust (Pact)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerRuns the family-friendly visitors centre at HMP Belmarsh, providing support, information and guidance to visitors. Partnership enables visitor support services.
• HM Inspectorate of PrisonsminorOthersProvides independent inspection reports and reviews of prisons including HMP Belmarsh. Reports are aggregated and presented through the service.
• Independent Monitoring Board (IMB)minorOthersProvides annual monitoring reports for prisons. IMB data including named IMB chairs and inspection findings are aggregated through the service.
• UnlockminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCharity providing advice on criminal records and disclosure. Referenced for practical tools including disclosure calculators and filtering guides.
• NacrominorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCrime prevention charity providing advice on criminal records, disclosure, and rehabilitation support. Referenced for guidance on employment, education, and disclosure.

Scale indicators11 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Others

• Find Legal Aid: Official GOV.UK tool for locating Legal Aid Agency provider offices - the direct upstream comparator to CJH's Legal Aid Provider directory covering the same 3,308-office dataset.

Emerging players

• NACRO: Crime prevention charity providing guidance on criminal records, disclosure, employment and rehabilitation; already a CJH partner and competes for some of the same at-need users.
• BAILII: British and Irish Legal Information Institute providing free access to court judgments and legislation; comparable as a non-commercial, aggregator-style public legal-information service in the UK.
• Advicenow: A project of Citizens Advice providing practical legal information for the public on issues including criminal justice. Similar plain-English information-service model aimed at lay users navigating complex legal processes.
• Unlock: UK charity providing advice on criminal records and disclosure; already a strategic partner of CJH. Operates overlapping disclosure-calculation and criminal-records guidance content that mirrors part of CJH's toolset.
• Transform Justice: UK charity and think tank producing data-driven research on criminal justice reform, sharing the practitioner and policy-researcher user segment that CJH's policy library and datasets serve.

Broad incumbents

• GOV.UK: The official UK government portal that publishes much of the underlying data CJH aggregates (Ministry of Justice, Legal Aid Agency). Functions as both a data source and a direct alternative user experience for the same information needs.
• Citizens Advice: UK charity providing free, independent public advice on legal, consumer and rights issues including criminal justice. Uses an analogous nonprofit information-service model and similar plain-English, volunteer-supported delivery, making it the closest mission-aligned incumbent.
• Howard League for Penal Reform: The UK's oldest penal reform charity, producing research, briefings and engagement programmes across prisons, sentencing and the criminal justice system - a comparable nonprofit voice operating in the same information and advocacy space.
• Prison Reform Trust: UK charity focused on reducing imprisonment and improving prison conditions, producing reports and resources overlapping with CJH's prison-directory and policy-library content for a similar audience.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/criminaljusticehub
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/criminal-justice-hub-uk
• Xx.com/crimjusticehub
• Facebookfacebook.com/criminaljusticehub

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Criminal Justice Hub