Prison (Play)time??

Pampered prisoners supplied with £221,726 of PlayStations

By Simon Mcgee

Last updated at 12:08 AM on 03rd August 2008

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Prisoners across the country are being supplied with computer games consoles costing thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

The Prison Service has spent £221,726 on PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo systems and software to keep jailed criminals entertained. Ministers have previously admitted spending only £10,000 on the machines.

An audit carried out last month on Justice Secretary Jack Straw’s orders turned up 12,948 game consoles in prisons and young-offender institutions in England and Wales, showing how widespread their use is among the 83,600 prison population.

Pampered: A prisoner plays a PlayStation game in his cell

While most of them were bought by inmates themselves, a total of 1,715, costing between £100 and £300 each, was provided by the Prison Service.

The Ministry of Justice recently announced restrictions on the use of the games but critics said this was because the extent of their use was going to be made public.

Officials at the department admitted that there was nothing to stop violent 18-rated games being played on taxpayer-funded machines and conceded that prison authorities may have purchased violent titles for some inmates.

Tory MP Nigel Evans, to whom Mr Straw disclosed the figures in a letter, said: ‘Does being sent down for five years of hard PlayStation playing serve as rehabilitation or punishment?

‘This is rewarding criminal behaviour with equipment which many victims of crime could only dream of affording for their children. People will be outraged by this revelation.’

Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Herbert said: ‘While Ministers protest that there is no money for prison places or rehabilitation schemes, they waste taxpayers’ funds on luxuries which prisoners shouldn’t have.

‘Offenders should be learning and preparing for the world of work, not idly playing Grand Theft Auto and preparing to return to crime.’

It was disclosed recently that thousands of inmates have access to Sky TV and computers, and last week it was revealed that more money is spent on food for prisoners in police cells than for NHS patients.

Prisoners are allowed to play 18-rated games such as Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt, which are notorious for their extreme violence.

However, from October, 18-rated titles will be banned in prisons altogether and the use of consoles will be restricted to only the best behaved prisoners or those on suicide watch.

In his letter to Mr Evans, Mr Straw claimed he had not known of the arrangement until recently. He wrote: ‘I was unhappy when I first heard [in April] that public money was being spent on games consoles, and ordered a review of this policy.

‘I have now decided that, with immediate effect, no public money will be spent on games consoles.’

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said decisions about purchasing consoles for inmates had been made on ‘a prison-by-prison basis’.