MORE than 400 televisions have been destroyed by prisoners at far north Queensland's Lotus Glen Correctional Centre over the last year by turning their electrical cables into a way to light their cigarettes.

The Queensland Corrective Services has confirmed it will make sweeping overhauls to the current practice of charging prisoners just $2 a week to have a TV in their cell after 425 had to be replaced and another 131 had to undergo repairs within 12 months.

The figure equates to more than one per day being ruined.

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QCS Commissioner Marlene Morison admitted most of the damage had been intentional, and came despite prisoners being threatened with TV bans of up to six months if they caused the damage.

``Most of the damage is caused by prisoners using the electrics to light cigarettes,'' she said.

``Matches and lighters are banned and smoking in the cells is prohibited.''

The technique of turning an electrical cable into a blowtorch was popularised in hit US television drama Breaking Bad, when anti-hero Walter White (Bryan Cranston) used the cable from an electric coffee pot to burn through a wrist tie (see video above).

A Lotus Glen employee, who did not wish to be named, said even when bans were imposed, this did not work as some prisoners used stand-over tactics to take sets belonging to other inmates.

Ms Morison said they would introduce a trial system to make inmates pay a $30 bond to have a set in their room, although all inmates would still have access to them in common areas until the 6pm lock-up time.

James Cook University criminologist Dr Mark David Chong said prison wardens had to walk ``a fine tightrope'' between enforcing punishment, but also maintaining order within the jail.

``If they don't ensure that they allow basic human rights it makes it difficult to control the (prison) population,'' he said.

``Prisoner movements and rights groups have been quite prominent to make sure they're not treating them like they're not human beings any more.

``But then victims rights groups would probably order a different side. The victims don't have TV, the victims don't have these privileges so where is the justice in that?''

He said he was not surprised the banning system did not work because of the hierarchy nature of all prisons.

``They do have a fairly rigid structure within the prison itself. There is a pecking order,'' he said.

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