Star comment: Getting tough on prisoners
The days of an easy life for prisoners are over. And that's how it should be.
In recent years, prisons have resembled holiday camps with inmates enjoying satellite and cable TV channels in their cells.
Instead of games of table tennis and football in the exercise yard, prisoners will be put to work. They will labour for longer hours and will have to earn their privileges.
TVs will be removed from most cells, prisoners won't be able to spend all hours in the gym, building bodies as strong as Schwarzenegger.
Like the rest of society, they'll have to earn their privileges.
If they work hard, please their bosses – or, in this case, the prison governor – they will be allowed a few perks.
The Government's plan is simple. It wants to make sure prisoners remember the reason why they are sent to jail: so that they are punished for their crimes and so they don't commit any more.
Recidivism rates in the UK are far too high. Too many prisoners returning to civvy street re-offend. And that's hardly surprising when they've been under regimes that are like Pontins.
Hardened criminals have been able to operate from the comfortable confines of their prison cells, using mobile phones or computers, while watching the latest Premier League game on their TV. Those days are now over.
Justice Secretary Chris Grayling is sending a tougher message to cons. They'll work longer, won't be allowed to watch 18-certificate films, will have less access to private cash and wear a uniform.
'Doing time' will no longer mean 'wasting time'.
When prisoners are sent to prison, they'll know about it.
It's not just about punishing society's ill-doers, of course. The Justice Secretary also wants to make sure prisoners are better equipped to re-integrate with society when they return to the outside world.
There will be a focus on employment skills and an emphasis on getting people into safe housing and work.
The initiative ticks all the right boxes. There's every reason to believe it will help cut reconviction rates, rehabilitate offenders and remind convicts that prison isn't an easy way out.