Britain’s jails will be criticised today as no more than costly bed-and-break-fast lodgings as new figures show that thousands of prisoners a year reject the chance of early release.

More than 37,000 inmates opted out of tagging and other release schemes between 1999 and 2006, Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, admitted yesterday. He also revealed that 42 people have been caught trying to break into prisons in the past five years.

The figures add weight to claims that jail has become an attractive option for many inmates. Gordon Brown, fearful of being seen as soft on crime, stepped in recently to block a planned pay rise for prisoners.

He took action after a warning by Glyn Travis, assistant general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association, that inmates were reluctant to leave because drugs were now cheaper in jail.

Nick Herbert, the Shadow Justice Secretary, who obtained the new figures in a series of parliamentary answers, said that they laid bare Labour’s “farcical mismanagement” of the prison system. “How secure are our jails if criminals can break into them? Whether these are offenders trying to return to jail, as prison officers have alleged, or dealers trying to traffic drugs, it is ludicrous that supposedly secure establishments can be breached in this way.”

However, the Ministry of Justice said that breakins at closed prisons were extremely rare and also challenged the claim that prisoners opted out of being considered for tagging and other early-release schemes because they wanted to stay inside. “Among the most likely reasons are that the prisoner cannot provide details of a release address or will consider that it is highly unlikely he or she will pass the risk assessment and does not bother to apply,” a spokesman said.

Business leaders will heap further criticism on the criminal justice system today at a CBI conference. Neil Bentley, director of public services, is expected to say that prison is being “used as a hugely expensive bed-and-breakfast facility that keeps criminals out of circulation”. He will add that reoffending rates show the “colossal failure” of existing criminal justice policies with two in three people who go through prison being convicted of another crime within two years of release, rising to three in four among young offenders.

“If two in three pupils left school unable to read or write, or two in three patients left their GP surgery as in need of medical attention as when they went in, the reaction would be one of anger, and rightly so,” Dr Bentley will say.

The CBI estimated recently that the annual cost of crime was £60 billion, about 5 per cent of Brtain’s GDP.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “It is ridiculous to conflate these two issues. Prison is anything but soft and it is absurd to suggest otherwise.

“The punishment of the court is loss of liberty by being sent to prisons which combine tough regimes with the opportunity of rehabilitation.

“While trespass into open prisons is more difficult to control, there has only been one identified case of a member of the public breaking into a closed prison in the last five years.”

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