Convicts pass up the chance to escape from jail because conditions are too "cushy", according to the Prison Officers Association. Do inmates really have it too easy?
It sounds like too far-fetched a plot even for Ronnie Barker's wily lag Fletcher in the sit-com Porridge.
According to Glyn Travis of the Prison Officers Association (POA), a drug dealer regularly broke into category-C Everthorpe prison in Yorkshire using a ladder - but no inmates chose to follow him out and escape.
Mr Travis says prisoners have no incentive to break out because of the comfy regime inside UK jails.
His analysis is backed up by Steve (not his real name), a former inmate at a Yorkshire category-D facility.
"Things have got even slacker since I came out"Steve says he was shocked by how relaxed the open prison was compared to the category-B jail where he began his sentence for fraud.
"I used to give this lad £20," Steve recalls. "He'd jump over the fence, go to the nearest village, buy 24 cans of lager and bring them back. I'd sell them for a phonecard each.
"Drugs weren't my thing, but once cannabis got inside, the attitude of the prison officers was that what was yours was yours. There were never any cell searches.
"If you could string two sentences together you were made an orderly. I was the fire orderly, and could wander anywhere I liked unsupervised.
"From what I've been told, things have got even slacker since I came out."
'Main currency'
There is agreement from the other side of the staff-prisoner divide.
Ronnie Thompson, a prison officer for seven years until 2006, says jail is only tough for the first-timer.
"For the persistent re-offender, they really have got everything they want in there," he adds.
"They do have a television straight away, many establishments have kettles straight away, radios.
"But the main thing they have, and the main currency in there, is drugs."
Roger Outram, former head of security at Belmarsh, says he finds it difficult to believe that dealers would try and break into prisons - because there are much easier ways of getting drugs inside.
He argues that the top-security category-A and B jails are well-guarded, but that security is far too loose in lower-risk jails.
"The idea that jails are cushy is blown away by the appalling levels of suicide and self harm""There are prisoners running very successful businesses inside," he says.
"Open prisons are rife with drugs. Security is such that they are able to manipulate the places.
"There's a danger that the wrong people are being sent to category-C prisons because the category-Bs are overcrowded."
However, Robert Duncan, former governor of Pentonville, believes there are other reasons why inmates would not take the opportunity to break out.
"I think we've gone too far in allowing personal possessions," he says.
"But you have to remember that prisoners in category-C jails are on shorter sentences and have less incentive to escape.
"There have been attempted escapes from at least three prisons this year, and I believe that around 500 escaped convicts are currently on the run, so I don't think its true that inmates don't want to break out."
And others reject the idea that jails are in any way cushy.
Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, argues that the reality of life inside is very different.
"There is far too little useful work in prison, but the idea that jails are cushy is blown away by the appalling levels of suicide and self-harm," she says.
"It would make a less compelling headline but the POA could be demanding that its members stop acting as untrained nurses having to cope with people who are mentally ill or addicted to drugs and drink."
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