NEXT TIME I meet a criminal, I will be careful how I address him. I will bow before I open my mouth. I will preface my remarks with “Sir, I am honoured to be in your presence”. And then I will treat him with deference. Because I wouldn’t want to offend any of the upstanding members of society who reside at Her Majesty’s pleasure by not according them sufficient respect.

According to the latest report from Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, only 43 per cent of prisoners feel that prison officers treat them with respect. Worse still, Ms Owers finds that “institutional disrespect” of prisoners is built into the very fabric of Pentonville Prison.

The poor dears. How could anyone be so inhuman as not to respect murderers, rapists, paedophiles, thugs and thieves?

Even worse, Ms Owers informs us, inmates at Pentonville sometimes go without pillows or — surely tantamount to torture — or a choice of dishes for dinner.

The airwaves yesterday were full of professional lobbyists for criminals — Frances Crook, from the Howard League for Penal Reform, and Juliet Lyon, from the Prison Reform Trust — telling us how terrible this all is and how we must treat prisoners better.

Well pardon me, but I don’t give a damn. I couldn’t care less if a convict has to sleep without a pillow or has to eat cheese on toast rather than fillet steak. In fact, the only thing I care about is that some apparently do get a choice of meal. They are, might I point out, criminals. They are — or rather should be — being punished. They should be given a basic meal and told to like it or lump it.

Ms Owers says that 40 per cent of prisoners allege that they are victimised by officers and she reports their allegations of assaults. These figures have been seized on as a horrifying statement of abuse by prison officers.

But there is a small problem with the reliability of this evidence. The people making the allegations are what are technically known as “liars”. They are criminals, for whom the truth is an alien concept. So when 40 per cent say they have been assaulted, I don’t believe them. And the fact that Ms Owers does surely says all that we need to know about the worth of her reports.

If criminals don’t want to live in harsh conditions there’s a very simple answer. Don’t commit a crime.