It's a holiday camp you know. They have tellies, playstations and three square meals a day.
So goes the old ‘prison is too soft for them’ line.
But even if that’s true it could be about to get a whole lot tougher for 80% of inmates.
That, according to NHS figures, is how many of our lags, crooks, criminals, villains and offenders smoke.
But they may not for much longer.
A Government plan to roll out the smoking plans to prisons is afoot, with trials beginning at jails next year.
To be fair when a prisoner hears the word trial they probably won’t be in favour of taking part ... not after the last time.
But there have been dire warnings issued.
Having a fag is part of prison life, something that gets inmates through their sentences and if it’s taken away then get ready for rioting.
I wonder how many prisoners fancy quitting the nicotine?
Maybe spending all the money they make from mending fishing nets (well, that’s what they did in Porridge) on sweets rather than smokes may cheer them up.
It’ll make ’em easier to catch anyway as they’ll be waddling rather than sprinting away from the long arm of the law.
Surely it will help them when they are released as the money they get will go on essentials rather than a habit which is killing them?
But, as a prisoner who doesn’t want to quit would no doubt say, it’s their human right to have a fag.
Either way, I don’t imagine they’ll be letting them nip outside for one any time soon.
