If I’m a criminal that did something that would warrant a life sentence locked up in one building, I’d want the easy way out. I don’t think it achieves anything.
I don’t care if prisoners have limited access to TV, or Nintendo, or small comforts as long as they are locked up and it keeps prisons safe and manageable for the staff that work there, although contact with the outside world should be next to none for serious crime. I can’t understand how mobile phones get into prisons.
Prison should be about rehabilitation and protecting the public, not vengeance.