It's official - convicts are hard-up for quality viewing.

It's official - convicts are hard-up for quality viewing.

The prison system is supposedly an institution where society's wicked undercarriage is locked away.

It is here that dangerous felons, fraudsters and miscreants will remain while the rest of us get on with our lives. The good folk of South Africa really believe this is where our diseased brethren should remain - right?

That, however, is yet another great myth. Our fallibility, as decent citizens of South Africa, lies in entrusting such wretched souls into the custody of equally corrupt warders.

Imagine the outrage if it were known that prisoners prospered more within their cells than many hardworking people do on the outside.

When inmates of Sada Prison in the Eastern Cape were caught watching porn, it wasn't a pretty sight.

Convicts were so captivated by their debauchery that the venue could have been mistaken for an elite private party.

It wasn't only the fornication on their plasma-screen televisions that had officials up in arms - it was the expensive music systems, DVDs, dagga, official uniforms and more.

Naturally the bigwigs have no idea how such items found their way into the prison. It's the greatest caper of all time, second only to the great escape-artist Annanias Mathe.

Brett Chatz, Houghton