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HughPickens.com writes:

The NY Times reports that although no single lapse or mistake in security enabled two killers to break out of the Clinton Correctional Facility two weeks ago, it is now clear that an array of oversights, years in the making, set the stage for the prison break and for the ensuing manhunt. According to the Times, a sense of complacency had taken hold that in some ways might have been understandable. There had not been an escape from the 170-year-old prison in decades, and officials say no one had ever broken out of the maximum-security section. "As the months go by, years go by, things get less strict," says Keith Provost. Unlike many prisons and jails across the country, there are no video cameras on the cell blocks at the Clinton facility that might have detected suspicious activity and although prison rules forbid putting sheets across cell bars to obstruct viewing, in practice, officers say, inmates frequently were allowed to hang sheets for lengthy periods. Officials ssay there is a good chance that the two men had been at work on their plan for weeks, maybe months. Night after night, the authorities have come to believe, the two men stuffed their beds with crude dummies, slipped out of holes they had cut in the back of their cells and climbed down five stories using the piping along the walls. They then set to work inside the tunnels under the prison, spending hours preparing their path of escape before returning to their cells unobserved.

Prisoners have 24 hours a day to find breaks in the system. says Pennsylvania Corrections Secretary John Wetzel adding that it could be a loose chain link or peeling paint around vents that could give the prisoners what they need to develop a escape plan. According to Wetzel, when people are sentenced to a life in prison, they have all the time in the world to come up with escape plans. "If you have life to plan it out, you can wait for your opportunity."