Should prisoners have to earn the right to watch television?
Prisoners will have to work and earn privileges such as TVs in cells, the government has said.
They will be denied access to Sky Sports and 18-rated DVDs and will no longer enjoy perks simply for keeping out of trouble.
Instead, offenders will start their life behind bars adhering to a spartan regime, wearing prison uniform.
Only by hard work or study will they be allowed television, full access to the gym, the right to wear their own clothes and to be able to spend any money they earn in the prison shop.
Inmates who wreck cells, start fires or damage prison property will be forced to pay compensation.
Announcing the shake-up, prisons minister Jeremy Wright said: "Prison is there to punish, it's not there to be comfortable.
"It's there to be somewhere you don't want to go back to and what we are doing in changing the regime is to make sure that message is there and heard loud and clear.
"But it's also a place where we expect rehabilitation to happen. We expect people to do those things that make it less likely when they come out that they reoffend."
Inmates used to get full entitlements simply by avoiding violence; if you 'kept your nose clean and didn't punch the officers', said Mr Wright.
But, in future, offenders will go on a new entry regime for the first fortnight of their sentence, during which they will have to wear uniform and be denied TV and use of the shop.
They will be required to join a work programme, education or drug rehabilitation course or some other purposeful activity.
The changes follow a review ordered by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling, who has criticised the 'frills' available to prisoners but unaffordable for ordinary families.
They will be expected to 'engage in their own rehabilitation', Mr Wright said, in the hope fewer inmates offend when they get out. "Most people would expect that prisoners were engaged in work or purposeful activity when they are in prison and aren't sitting around watching TV.
From the end of next month, 18-rated DVDs will join extreme video games in being banned in all jails.
The announcement has been condemned by Frances Crook, of the Howard League for Penal Reform, who said: "The fact the prison population has doubled in the past 20 years has left prisons overcrowded and staff overstretched, with little choice but to lock people up in their cells all day with nothing to do."
