(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-26 08:52

LONDON: Criminals are enjoying such a life of luxury in British jails that they are refusing to try to escape, a senior prison union official said on Friday.

Dangerous prisoners enjoy satellite television, free telephone calls and breakfast in bed in the country's "cushy" jails, Glyn Travis, the general-secretary of the Prison Officers' Association General, said.

Cheap drugs are readily available, some prisoners get visits from prostitutes, and in some jails, inmates have "control" over staff, he said.

In some cases, overstretched staff are powerless to impose order because they are frightened of breaching prisoners' human rights, he said.

In comments published by several newspapers on Friday, Travis gave an example of a breach at Everthorpe Prison in East Yorkshire, where a dealer regularly used a ladder to scale the fence and supply inmates with drugs and mobile phones.

Inmates at an unnamed top security prison recently told Justice Secretary Jack Straw that conditions were like a "holiday camp", the media reports said.

Dismissing claims he was making a political point to get more staff and funding, Travis said on Friday the prison service was in crisis and that tough jails were too "cushy".

"What we are after is a safe and secure system that the public can have confidence in, and it has nothing to do with making a political statement," he told BBC radio.

"What we are saying is that the public deserves to have safe and secure prisons. We have a serious crisis in prisons today."

He said the incident at Everthorpe showed how serious the problem was, when prisoners with a history of escaping refused, in order to stay in jail.

"The prisoners did not take this opportunity, or plan to escape, because we believe that life is so cushy within the prison system," he said.

His comments are a blow to the government's tough-on-crime rhetoric and comes as ministers are being heavily criticized for chronic overcrowding in British jails.

A spokesman for the Prison Service said the service was aware of a security breach but dismissed claims that prisons were cushy.

"The National Offender Management Service recognizes that a careful balance must be maintained between the concerns of the public that prisoners should not benefit from their criminal behavior and the need to ensure that, wherever possible, prisoners are rehabilitated," he said in a statement.

Agencies