What are conditions like inside an open prison?
Monday must have seemed like a return to old times for the disgraced peer Jeffrey Archer. Perjury charges came as he made his stage debut The author and sometime-actor parked his black BMW and walked to the theatre where he now works, tailed by reporters – just as he was in the days before he was jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice. For it was his first day as a backstage helper at the Theatre Royal in Lincoln, 40 miles from the North Sea Camp open prison where he resides. The Home Office says day release jobs – which help prepare an inmate for a future outside prison – are a valuable part of the prison sentence. Lord Archer is allowed to drive his own BMW Newspapers have questioned whether a five-day-week job making tea and shifting props, as well as visits to his 1.5m mansion, will be punishment enough for the convicted peer. While day-release programmes are most common in open prisons, Category C inmates who are nearing the end of their time in a closed facility
