Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. That was the now infamous Labour campaign slogan. Yet after a decade of in power, Judges are being repeatedly advised by the so-called Ministry of Justice not to incarcerate convicted criminals & even when they do, they are released early.

However, it seems that there is now a new issue with our prison service

Inmates are so comfortable in jail that they do not want to escape, a prison officer union leader says.

Clearly these early release schemes must come as a bitter disappointment to some prisoners especially as for example

It tells me something is wrong in society when people are breaking in to prisons to bring in drugs, but the prisoners are quite happy to stay inside … drugs are coming into prisons at a rate that's so dramatic that drugs in prison are actually cheaper than on the outside

Well, can I just suggest that in the absence of being able to moor prison hulks in the Medway estuary the other solution is this…