More prisoners to be let out early as inmate tells Jack Straw being in jail is 'just like a holiday camp'

The Justice Secretary said he could not rule out agreeing to more early release plans.

It comes after a prisoner told Mr Straw that life in his jail was "like a holiday camp".

Mr Straw said: "Nobody in my position can rule out emergency measures but, by God, I'm working very, very hard to avoid that because this is all about maintaining the confidence to the public."

Yesterday, during a visit to Highdown prison in Surrey, Mr Straw smiled as he recalled his meeting with the inmate who also told him that prisoners should be locked up without access to luxury items such as televisions.

He also insisted that community work was better than jail.

Community punishments, he argued, "can work better" and should be used in "appropriate circumstances".

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Mr Straw claimed too many offenders were being sent to prison on short sentences and said ruling out any extension of Labour's early release programme was not an option.

So far more than 18,000 prisoners have been set free early, going on to commit more than 300 crimes, including one murder.

His remarks, weeks after he said he was not "lying awake at night" over the prison crisis, angered the Tories.

Conservative justice spokesman Nick Herbert said: "First Jack Straw says he loses no sleep over the prisons crisis, and now he jokes when a prisoner says his jail is like a holiday camp.

"Prisons should be places of hard work and rehabilitation where offenders get off drugs and are prepared to go straight on their release.

"It is nonsense to claim that short-term prisoners are causing the jails crisis.

"Fewer than one in ten prisoners are serving sentences of less than a year."

He added: "Prisons are overcrowded because this Government has ignored repeated warnings and failed to provide adequate capacity."

The Conservatives have pledged to increase jail capacity to more than 100,000 if elected.

Mr Straw said: "Short sentences are a matter for the courts to decide and it has to be for them.

"What I am saying, however, is just think about whether community punishments in appropriate circumstances, which can be very tough, and on average can work better than short sentences, should not be used."

On the possibility of extending the early release scheme, he said: "Nobody in my position can rule out emergency measures but, by God, I'm working very, very hard to avoid that."

Despite the "holiday camp" remark, Mr Straw insisted that for longer-serving prisoners providing education and training was a better policy than stripping prisons of TVs and other luxuries.

The Magistrates' Association said it was "tough" that the Government now found itself dealing with an overcrowding crisis.

"Magistrates sentence according to law and impose custody when no other sentence is justified," said a spokesman.

"The decision to imprison is never taken lightly and the law states that every sentence must be for the shortest period possible.