Inmates post Trip Advisor-style reviews of ‘holiday’ prisons in sick insult to crime victims

Get the full story here: Daily Mirror, 30 January 2017, link.

Some of Britain’s toughest prisons are rated “Five Star” by cons who say they enjoy the food, comfy cells, and easy access to drugs, booze, and mobile phones.

The only complaints are about the views from the windows, noise from rioting inmates, the lack of wi-fi and “feeling a little penned in”.

Justice campaigners have complained some of the posts are coming from serving prisoners – and jail bosses are planning a new purge on mobile phone. […]

Justice campaigner David Spencer, Research Director at the Centre for Crime Prevention, said: “The very existence of these Facebook pages says much about the cushy conditions prisoners are enjoying in jails around the UK.

“For the Ministry to say none of the comments were made by serving prisoners shows how out of touch they are with the reality in the jail system, where the smuggling contraband items such as mobile phones is endemic.

“It is high time that they got to grips with security across the prison system as a whole, and ensured that a spell behind bars really does act as a deterrent to criminals, rather than them comparing it to a hotel stay.”

Get the full story here: Daily Mirror, 30 January 2017, link.