Why Do Prisoners Keep Breaking Out?

Aug 5, 2006 — -- With bars, barriers, and surveillance cameras around the clock, prisons are seemingly impenetrable fortresses of steel and stone -- but recent escapes have some wondering if that's really true.

Prisons are designed with one purpose: To keep communities safe from the often dangerous inmates locked inside.

"My observation was that every prisoner every day is thinking about escape," said Ted Conover, the author of "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing," who once worked as a corrections officer at Sing Sing, one of the nation's most notorious maximum security prisons.

"The promise that a prison makes when it comes to your community is, 'We're not gonna let anybody out,'" Conover said.

It is a promise that is broken far too often. Just this summer, there have been prisoner escapes in at least 18 states, causing fear among nearby residents.

"There are more prisoners than ever in history and it is also true that there are budget cutbacks that subtract from prison staff and a lot of guards unions say that's the reason these breaks are happening," Conover said.

Cameras at a Michigan jail showed Otis Taylor, who is accused of shooting a police officer, as he escaped underneath the jail's garage door while in transport.