It's good to be a British prisoner

. Ian Brady, now age 70 and perhaps the most famous British murderer of the 20th century, complained recently that the psychiatric inmates housed with him in Ashworth Hospital still qualify for government allowances up to the equivalent of about $200 per week, whereas prison transfers like him receive "only" one-fourth that amount.

. After completing a six-year sentence for aggravated burglary in 2006, an unidentified male inmate at Peterborough prison has for two years refused to leave, for fear of being deported, and will continue to remain behind bars indefinitely, costing the government the equivalent of about $60,000 a year to house him.