London, Oct 2(ANI): Huge amounts of UK taxpayers' money has been squandered in ferrying prisoners' relatives to jail and installing digital TV sets in cells.
Freedom of Information documents has shown that over 6.7 million pounds has been spent in the past three years to arrange taxis to enable people visit their imprisoned relatives.
The Assisted Prison Visit scheme permits citizens to use cash to pay for taxis, food and overnight accommodation.
Supporters of the scheme said it helps maintain family ties and facilitates the offender to settle back into his community once he is released from prison.
But critics expressed concern over the project's rising costs from 1,973,000 pounds in 2005 to 2,343,132 pounds in 2010.
Some UK jails use "empty" channels to show movies daily, and inmates can choose from a menu of film categories: romantic comedy, action, thriller and sc-fi.
"Jails in the UK have better TV systems than a lot of hotels. Inmates have a huge amount of choice. You do wonder if they are being punished very much," a prison source told the Daily Express.
UK Justice Ministry has spent over 5.4 million pounds to ensure that every prisoner inmate has access to digital television.
A Prison Service spokesman said an inmate's access to television was a condition of acceptable behaviour.
Prison Officers Association Deputy General Secretary Mark Freeman slammed the Ministry for wasting colossal amounts of taxpayers' money.This money would be better spent on providing staff with a secure environment to work in to ensure they are able to safely carry out work expected of them by the Ministry of Justice," he said.
"At a time when Ken Clarke is authorising one of the most extreme cuts in budget in living memory, it is shameful so much money has been wasted on upgrading the television system in prisons," he added. (ANI)
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