A great idea.

California Department of Forestry has been using inmate labor for some time now. Back in my Firefighter/Paramedic days I enjoyed working with them. Polite, hard working, and very fit. No way I could keep up with them! Great bunch of men. Just made a bad decision in their life.

http://www.fdnntv.com/CAL-FIRE-Inmate-Firefighters

Years ago, in about July 1970, I walked off my summer internship, and jumped in my old Toyota Landcruiser, headed North from LA. After a few nights sleeping on the ground in the redwoods, I found myself on a small secondary road near the Hoopa Valley Indian reservation. There was a flagman in the middle of the road, and not another car in sight. He stopped me, because the highway department was doing some blasting ahead of me on the mountain.

He was a convict, convicted of petty theft (at least that's what he said), and we talked about a lot of stuff. I was 20, and I'd say he was about 30. After a while, he spotted my cooler, and asked if I had anything cold to drink, so I gave him a beer. He then walked over to the side of the road, where his lunch pail was, and came back with a fairly good-sized branch of herb. Said there was a whole field of the stuff, just out of the campground a mile ahead...

I didn't stop, but I believe him. Just another guy, bad choices, but otherwise normal. Good gig, outdoors, no one breathing down his neck. Lots more like him, locked up in the silly "War on Drugs".

Its been reported that a number of UK inmates have not been released on time and are paid £800 a week to have overstayed in prison. The release system is so complicated when time on remand, good behaviour, doing some kind of job in prison, the severity of the crime determines among other things how much time you should do. In the most part the original sentence passed down doesn't come into it.
So, free food, accommodation, around the clock security and £800 a week. An English good idea to give a lag.

OT..............