The Commissioner for Victims and Witnesses, Louise Casey, has welcomed a new report calling for reform of the prison work regime.

Her endorsement follows new research by the think tank Policy Exchange which found that thousands of offenders could be doing useful, profitable full-time jobs to help pay back victims and tax payers whilst in prison.

Louise Casey said:

'I welcome the common-sense report released today by Policy Exchange on making prisons a place of real work. Implementing these proposals would help prisoners gain the skills and work ethic to help them go straight upon release, would benefit the taxpayer in that prisoners would begin to earn their keep and would mean improved services for victims funded from a proportion of prisoners’ earnings.

'I also strongly support the idea that prisoners would have to earn privileges such as televisions through hard work and good behaviour – something that mirrors how ordinary hard working citizens have to live their lives in order to afford luxuries.

'Victims and the public don’t want to think that prisons are places that just perpetuate criminal or dependent behaviour – they want criminals to be punished by losing their freedom. But it's also important to them that prisoners don't go out and commit more crimes when released.  I believe these proposals if implemented would go a long way to restoring public faith in the prison system.'

More information on the Policy Exchange report.