Britain’s highest-paid inmates are earning more on average than the prison officers who guard them, it can be revealed.
Last year, the highest-paid inmate had a net salary of £36,715, according to Home Office data obtained by a freedom of information request. It means their gross pay was about £46,000.
Nine other inmates last year had net earnings of more than £22,900, the data showed.
Some prisoners in low-security open prisons are allowed to work outside of the prison, as long as they are back in the jail confines by the end of the day.
It is part of an effort to rehabilitate prisoners and prepare them for life back in society.
It is thought these high-earning prisoners do a variety of jobs but one of the most lucrative, which also has some of the fewest security implications, is driving lorries.
Many prisoners who have jobs while serving a prison sentence have to pay a hefty victim’s levy, which can trim 40 per cent off an inmate’s salary.
However, it is believed that in the cases of the highest-paid prisoners, jail governors have decided not to impose the full deduction.
A top-paid inmate’s net salary of £36,715 puts them on a par with the take-home pay of midwives (£36,622), biochemists (£36,586), psychotherapists (£36,602) and chartered surveyors (£35,041).
Such income was also comfortably ahead of the average post-tax pay of PR professionals (£31,452) and probation officers (£29,913), according to wage figures from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings.
In total, prisoners’ pay last year totalled £22.5 million with an average of 1,183 inmates being employed every month.
It means the average working prisoner was being paid at the equivalent of just under £20,000 per year. The average salary of a prison officer is £28,000, while new recruits to the service are paid around £24,000 per year.
The Ministry of Justice admitted that there were two other high-paid prisoners who netted more than £30,000 after deductions last year, and another seven who managed to put between £22,900 and £30,000 into private bank accounts.
A Prison Service spokesman said: “Some offenders, towards the end of their sentence, receive a release on temporary licence. This sees them spend some of their day in the community, often working, before returning to prison.
“If they are working, their earnings are subject to tax, court fines and a levy of up to 40 per cent, which funds a charity for victims.
“Time spent working in the community significantly reduces a prisoner’s likelihood of reoffending, cutting crime and making our streets safer.”
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