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.

He was captured in a residential community three hours later. But other escapees, such as convicted murderer Richard Lee McNair, simply disappear.

Authorities couldn't prevent McNair escaping a third time from prison. He eluded prison officials by hiding under a pile of mailbags headed outside prison walls. Today, McNair is still on the loose.

Some of these brazen schemes seem to mirror the daring escapes depicted on TV and in the movies, like one in "Shawshank Redemption" made through the sewage pipe.

A group of prisoners fled their Arkansas jail by carving a hole in the ceiling.

"Turns out the ceiling was 60 feet high," Conover said. "The inmates must have stood on each other's shoulders like a cheerleading squad."

Two cellmates in New Mexico escaped after overpowering a guard using only a mop handle.

In New York, a can opener was the tool of choice for Ralph "Bucky" Phillips, who is still on the run after cutting through the ceiling of the prison's kitchen.

Law enforcement must prepare for the worst drills that simulate a real-life prison break.

"Prisons work very hard to anticipate any strategy you might use to get an inmate out," Conover said. "You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to design a prison that's escape proof, but apparently it is. Apparently it's very, very hard to predict everything an inmate might do."