The Australian:

BRITISH prisoners are passing up opportunities to escape because they are more comfortable inside jails where there is a plentiful supply of cheap drugs, according to a prison officers’ union leader.

Staff morale is at rock bottom and many jails are close to anarchy because of underfunding, said Glyn Travis, assistant general secretary of the Prison Officers Association.

He gave warning yesterday that the drug problem was now “out of control” and said even prostitutes were sometimes smuggled in.

Mr Travis told of an institution in Yorkshire where members of the public were climbing over the prison walls to take drugs inside. “They put up ladders to climb over the walls, but prisoners were so comfortable in the environment they were living in that none tried to climb up the ladders and escape,” he said, in a reference to Everthorpe Prison.

“When the ladders came down at night, the members of the public hid inside the prison until their colleagues come over the following morning at 6am, put the ladders back up and they were able to get out. None of the prisoners inside tried to escape. It tells me there’s something wrong in society when people are breaking into prisons to bring in drugs and prostitutes, but the prisoners are quite happy to stay inside.”