Spoken like a man who has never served a day in his life, or even been near a prison recently.
A friend works as part of a youth offenders team, looking after kids who have been banged up, or are about to be banged up. He told me a story today of a young lad who has just gone into prison. His dad was a smackhead, and used to batter him if he didn't bring money home for him to spend on his dope. Due to this, the lad started stealing and doing burglaries, eventually getting caught and getting sent down.
The lad went inside and made friends with his cell mate. What he didn't know, is that his cell mate was in for racially motivated crimes, so he basically got labelled a Nazi, and got the shit kicked out of him.
He had to go to hospital wing recently, because one of his tormentors put sugar in boiling water and threw it at his face, which pretty much melted it. Of course, while the lad was on the hospital wing, somebody's cell got raided for drugs, so the wing presumed he was a grass because he was out of his cell for a long time.
When he got back to his cell, a bunch of guys battered him within an inch of his life with whatever weapons they could find. He is now on suicide watch, because he is crying that he can't take any more of it and he is afraid that he might be killed, so he'd rather do it himself. In addition to this, my friend pointed at his name on a clipboard and said he wanted to speak to that lad specifically (in front of a few other lads waiting), when the screw said out loud "What? Joe Bloggs? I didn't know he was with your lot". Now these other guys may be on a separate wing, but they have no idea what my friend's "lot" is, so if word gets back, or another raid happens, the guys going to die. The screw was apologetic and put it down to an honest mistake, but the damage is done.
The kid will most likely kill himself over the next few days because he is scared of dying in there, and refuses to be labelled a grass and tell anybody who is leathering him. At his next birthday, he'll be 14.
Prison is still an ugly, ugly place, ask anybody who actually works in them and doesn't get their information via the Daily Mail.
Oh, and I know plenty of ex-cons and it IS the simple things that they miss - watching the footy, going for a pint, getting a chippy, that sort of stuff.