I was there as usual mixing with the great and good, listening to Martha and Jon Snow waxing lyrical about Twitter.
I'm not a Twitter fan; like much of the Internet, it encourages and provokes superficiality.
But the progress towards Internet access for Britain's prisoners is a cause worth fighting for.

Nice coverage by Robert Verkaik in The Independent today.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/...ane-fox-2136115.html

I think that the Prison Service cant ignore the 21st Century for much longer.

There is no point in rehabilitation if you stop Prisoners learning the actual skills they need to survive on the outside.

Internet access - controlled of course - is essential. Those who disagree mainly talk about "E Mail" being a problem - access to e mail can also be controlled so that prisoners did not run "Businesses" outside of prison etc. etc. but it is no different to them writing letters to be fair - which is already allowed. So should that right be taken away ?

It seems that the main issue will be cost in my view. However, if charities are willing to pay towards the cost of fitting prisons with internet access then surely that is a good thing.

Our prisons would work better if all prisoners had single cells which had a decent internet/PC in them and some sort of formal programme of education that EVERY prisoner had to do - including degree level and further degrees or research ( To cater for every need from illiterates upwards to Doctors etc and the hundreds of teachers who are now in jail for child porn offences ( and vicars ) )

If we cut the prison population by 20,000 and stopped remanding people as well unless they had broken bail in a previous case or had killed someone THEN we would immediately make Prisons a better place to try to change offending.

If we dont try and change offending behaviour then Prisons actually become "Universities of Crime" which means we as taxpayers are paying for the "keep" and training of criminals rather than a system to stop them offending.