A minister has defended a policy of letting prisoners have keys to their cells after it emerged that more than half the offenders in one county had them.
Home Office Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said: "It's mainly used for people who are soon going to be released or in open prisons.
"It's all part of providing incentives to encourage them to take more responsibility for themselves, to give them a little bit more respect and decency."
Official figures revealed that 5,747 of the 9,577 prisoners in Yorkshire prisons had keys for "privacy locks" to protect themselves and their belongings.
While many of the offenders are at open prisons and youth offenders' institutes, others are in standard closed prisons for those who have committed serious crimes such as muggings, burglary and theft.
Governors in other parts of the country are understood to have introduced the same policy.
But Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, says in the Daily Mail: "People will be horrified to know so many prisons give inmates their own keys.
"It will reinforce their view that the regime is far too lax and cushy."
Blair Gibbs, director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, adds: "It is hard to believe we live in a serious country any more when you hear lunacy like this."
