Prisoners given keys to the front door

A minister defended a policy of letting prisoners have keys to their cells after it emerged today that more than half the offenders in one county had them.

Official figures revealed that 5,747 of the 9,577 prisoners in Yorkshire prisons had keys for “privacy locks” to protect themselves and their belongings.

While many of the offenders are at open prisons and youth offenders’ institutes, others are in standard closed prisons for those who have committed serious crimes such as muggings, burglary and theft.

Governors in other parts of the country are understood to have introduced the same policy.

Blair Gibbs, director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, adds: “It is hard to believe we live in a serious country any more when you hear lunacy like this.”

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2043047,00.html