In the last couple of weeks, something of a media storm has blown up over six or so instances of prisoners absconding, either from open prisons, or failing to return after being let out for the day: released on temporary licence (ROTL).

By my calculation, that means some 5,200 inmates chose to remain in open prisons in England and Wales.

Those thousands could have absconded more or less when they liked, open jails are indeed open. There is a fence, more to keep people out than in, and staff levels are much lower than in closed prisons, so the opportunity to abscond is always there.

But they don't go, these thousands. Instead, they repay the trust placed in them by the prison service.

Likewise, many hundreds of prisoners are routinely awarded ROTL. Many go on what are called "town visits" or unsupervised days out. Many more go out daily to work, at proper jobs. All, bar the tiniest proportion, return. Escapes from open jails are at a record low.

I have been in open conditions. The last time was Sudbury prison, Derbyshire, in the late 1990s. I saw how well it worked. Most of the prisoners "working out" were employed by a local frozen-meat production factory. They worked in sub-zero temperatures, on the minimum wage and were delighted to do so. So much so that some of them continued their employment as free men. Working, and being thought of as colleagues rather than cons, had clearly become a habit. Success, writ large.

I worked in a small, local hotel. I cooked and served the meals, collected the money and did the washing up. I was up at the crack of dawn to cycle six miles to the hotel to prepare breakfasts. The hotel did not have anything like a proper accounting system. And had I wished, I could have kept some of the cash back without fear of detection. I raised this with my employer. His response: "Either I trust you, or I don't, and I have chosen the former."

I cannot tell you how much his faith in me contributed to my going straight, after that sentence, for there were several factors in play. I can still recall the glow I felt at being trusted.

Open jails are not are not easy places to serve time. Prisoners occasionally get bad news from home. When you are in a closed nick, there is nothing you can do, other than telephone, or write. But you can walk out of an open jail and the temptation – for those experiencing domestic strife – is huge. In my experience, most escapes are down to this; prisoners hear bad news and go home to try and sort things out, which is why the vast majority are captured quickly; police simply go to their homes and arrest them. And the runaways usually pay a heavy price.

Open jails are cheap to run and they "work" – in every sense of the word. Chris Grayling, the justice minister, ought to be shouting this positive news from the rooftops. Instead, I fear, he will be too busy punishing the thousands who don't breach the trust, by making it harder for them to follow this civilised, proven-to-work path to rehabilitation.