A sad day today for the thousands of inmates squeezed into Britain's overcrowded prison system as the UK Home Secretary, John Reid, has announced that the Sony PlayStation 3 will be banned in all of the country's slammers. The decision follows the outlawing of the PlayStation 2 in such establishments after concerns were raised over prisoners using the console's DVD playback functionality to screen pornographic material.

However, the decision to prohibit the PS3 from prisons, Reid explained, is due to the fact that the authorities are concerned about the console's wireless capabilities. They are worried that convicts will use the machine in conjunction with the PlayStation Portable to swap and share data amongst one another.

According to a related report published by Next-gen.biz: "Advice was issued to all prisons in December 2005 that the Sony PlayStation 3 was barred from the prison estate because of the equipment's ability to send and receive radio signals," said John Reid, in a response to shadow secretary David Davis' recent querying of Home Office regulations concerning the use of games consoles.

Never mind though, eh? Britain's swelling population of incarcerated individuals (being punished for all manner of criminal activities)  still probably have Microsoft Xboxs, Nintendo Wiis and all sorts of recreational distractions to make their stay in jail as comfortable as possible. Sort of defeats the whole object of the criminal justice system, don't you think?

Saying that, we wonder whether the most disappointed of unlawful persons is the gentleman from Swindon, England, who attacked a lady in an attempt to nab her PlayStation 3 after the console's launch in Europe on March 23? He was arrested for the act, and, if sent to prison, would surely be gutted at the fact that he wouldn't be able to experience the delights of the PS3 whilst in the slammer either.