Inmates Will Do Whatever It Takes to Get Out of the Big House

Aug. 3, 2010 — -- For some inmates, time behind bars is spent not on repenting for the crimes they've committed, but, much to the chagrin of the prison guards, brainstorming creative ideas to try and escape from their cells.

One did it with the help of a dental floss ladder. Others use tools stolen from a prison job or fashioned out of metal, paper or other materials. One even flashed an ID of the actor Eddie Murphy to walk out of a Los Angeles jail.

Late last week, three convicted murderers escaped an Arizona prison by using pliers to cut a hole in a fence that surrounds the prison and then carjacking a truck, demanding a ride to nearby Flagstaff.

Officials say that the inmates, Daniel Renwick, 36, Tracy Province, 42, and John McCluskey, 45, passed through a door that should have been alarmed but wasn't, and that a second alarm wasn't noticed by guards.

While one of the escapees was caught in Colorado over the weekend, the other two are still on the lam and considered dangerous.

According to Mitchel Roth, a prison historian who is a professor of criminal justice at Sam Houston State University in Texas, the evolution of work programs inside prisons has contributed to the varying ways inmates try and escape.

"They have plenty of time for conniving, and the more prison industries they have access to the more opportunities they have to get instruments to aid in their escape," said Roth.

"The prisoners are constantly watching and are very observant," he said. "Most of them are world-class manipulators before they even make it to prison."

Roth said that statistics on escapes are sparse, but that overall the attempts are down. Federal prison escapes are far rarer than those at minimum security camps, he said, where inmates are able just to walk off the premises. And even then, the great majority of inmates are apprehended.