An alliance of 34 criminal justice charities and associations have written an open letter to Straw urging him to scrap the plans, arguing they will do nothing to reduce crime or tackle “sky-high” reoffending rates.

Prisons Minster James Hanson says in a consultation document the supersized Titan prisons will “ensure that we can respond to the needs of different offenders whilst capturing the best of what we do and the economies of scale available to us.”

But Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers disagrees, describing Titans as “flying in the face of our and others’ evidence that smaller prisons work better than large ones.”

“They may be more efficient, but at the cost of being less effective” she says in her latest annual report.

Many jails today have as few as 200 places, while the largest — Wandsworth in London — has 1,500.

It’s not only special interest groups who are complaining.

The Conservatives also say smaller is better — both in schools and in jails — and note that the planned 60 acre size for the Titan prisons means that each would cover an area twice the size of Wembley Stadium.

Life peer Lord Carter, who came up with the idea of the Titan jails, told me in an interview last year they are designed to achieve supermarket efficiencies, saying they would be the equivalent of five 500-place prisons but with “shared services, like the gate and the catering.”

However, it appears the Titans won’t eradicate the problem of inmates doubling up in cells — the government’s own consultation document talks about achieving their 2,500 prisoner target by “planned overcrowding” from their basic 2,100 inmate capacity.

People often don’t care what happens to prisoners as long as they are locked up.

But should the government ignore the advice of the criminal justice charities who say the plans will “cement this country’s position as the prison capital of western Europe”?

In comments widely reported on Friday (available to browse here), he lists a series of home comforts enjoyed by inmates reminiscent of Ronnie Barker’s reign at HMP Slade in “Porridge” – breakfast in bed, control over the staff, visits from prostitutes and so on.

Do you have any experience of the Prison Service on either side of the fence? Do you agree with Travis’ remarks?  

Under the first, Children’s Secretary Ed Balls proposes that trouble-makers as young as 10 should sign a good behaviour contract . The “most challenging” among them will have to stick to the order or risk a criminal record.

The second, more extreme, suggestion comes from Gary Pugh, forensic science director for the Metropolitan Police, who was quoted in The Observer as saying trouble makers as young as five should be recorded on the national DNA database because future offenders can be picked out an early age.

The idea has been widely criticised, both by those who dislike the idea of stigmatising children at such a young age and those who bemoan what they call the government’s obsession with compiling databases — and its embarrassing tendency to lose personal data. The government has been non-committal but says it is listening to all views.

Do you believe law enforcement authorities need more tools at their disposal to deal with unruly children?