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."
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @08:25AM
Prison officials don't have a large enough budget to be vigilant and attentive. See what happens when you don't pay them enough to care. Do you see what happens. This is what happens. Killers are on the loose and your children are in danger. Think of the children.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 22 2015, @09:17AM
The usual answer we hear regarding education, health care, and every other problem the nation faces. Throw more money at it.
The article mentions that there have been increases in personnel in the prison in recent years. As I state in my post below - those personnel are grossly incompetent. GROSSLY incompetent. Instead of guarding prisoners, they are probably busy teaching prisoners things like computer hacking, or needlepoint, depending on the prisoner's preferences.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday June 22 2015, @09:40AM
Or maybe if the US 'justice' system wasn't so intent on convicting without trial as many harmless and/or innocent people as possible for little to no reason and thereby pushing the incarceration facilities to breaking point, there would be sufficient resources to manage the dangerous people who really do need to be in there.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 22 2015, @10:06AM
You make a good point there. The "justice" system is broken, and broken badly. I can't address pre-1945, but I know for certain that around the end of the second world war, that "Reefer Madness" craze took hold, and literally millions of poor dumb chumps have been locked up since then. Things have only gotten worse since then. Today, we have private prisons sprouting up around the nation, like poisonous mushrooms, and they all have contracts with the courts to maintain 90% capacity. Money, money, money - that's the name of the game.
But, none of that excuses incompetence.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday June 22 2015, @02:31PM
There were two waves of anti-pot efforts, both based on the same fears and motivations.
The first wave that made Mary Jane illegal in the first place was started in 1930 by Harry Anslinger, head of the Bureau of Narcotics at the time. The reason for making pot illegal, as Anslinger stated quite openly, was that "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men. ... The primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races. ... Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others."
The second wave, the one that turned it from being one of the many things cops were charged with enforcing to the War on Drugs (TM), was pushed forward by Richard Nixon and his chief of staff HR Haldeman. Their purpose, as Haldeman explains in his diary: "P [Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to." Nixon also saw this as a way to turn his anti-hippie efforts into a "law and order" campaign.
One reason that public opinion has shifted about the War on Drugs and marijuana in particular is that open racism is no longer as acceptable as it once was in the US.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @02:49PM
One reason that public opinion has shifted about the War on Drugs and marijuana in particular is that open racism is no longer as acceptable as it once was in the US.
Open racism is acceptable, it's just that the acceptable target race has shifted to white.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @09:48PM
As I have said before, "trickle down" only applies to bad stuff.
When you allow others to be victimized, it's only a matter of time before they get around to you. [wikipedia.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday June 22 2015, @12:17PM
harmless ... people
About a mile from my house there's a prison for drunk drivers. Really more of an addiction treatment center. I'm not sure WRT addiction that its wise to keep them near their friends and family who supported their addiction but its supposedly "humane", admittedly the point is they work release them so they don't lose their jobs and then treatment all night. My neighbor with like 8 lifetime DUI convictions (some very large number anyway) spent the better part of a year in there and still has a job and AFAIK still doesn't drink, at least not yet. Anyway about 100 miles away they have a real prison with murderers.
The point I'm making is an ideal system would have the moron guards and moron architects at the drunk tank, and the hard core ex-marine guards and hard core architects ("hard core architects" sounds like a pr0n movie) at the murderer prison. Unfortunately the real world of poor management would put murderers in the drunk tank, and moron guards at both sites, which seems to be the core of the problem.
So the cultural failure you point out is true and an issue, but doesn't need to be fought to keep elite prisoners guarded by elite guards at an elite facility. Its a simple management failure that these killers were in podunk prison guarded by cartoon characters.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @08:37AM
I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.
Ah fuck Jesus, let's just worship the Lord Obama. Them prisoners acted stupidly. Kill the fugitives! Kill for Obama!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 22 2015, @09:14AM
For me, two things stand out.
First, during bed checks, the guards stopped shining their flashlights onto prisoner's heads and faces. That seems absurd to me. I can easily fake many parts of the body, but I am simply unable to fake a convincing face. The light wakes the prisoner? Minimize that with a red lens. If I shine a red light in your face, I probably won't wake you, but I can SEE YOU! WTF - are guards really that stupid? Are the wardens really that stupid? WTF?!?!?!
Second - No one patrolled anywhere in those ducts and access ways in HOW FUCKING LONG?!?! NO ONE?!?! For God's sake, if I shared any responsibility for keeping prisoners in, I would want those places patrolled AT LEAST once per shift! So, maybe it's a lot of bother to climb up and down ladders, and walk those long distances along cell blocks with poor lighting. DO IT!!
"At one time, corrections officers regularly patrolled the catwalks, listening in on inmates’ conversations and gathering intelligence."
You can bet your ass that the prisoners knew about those patrols, and they also knew when the patrols ended. Huge flashing GREEN LIGHT for escape plans right there! Catwalks, tunnels, ladders, every possible access point, every possible route in, out, and through the prison, needs to be patrolled regularly, even if infrequently.
Other deficiencies, I can agree with, but most of them seem less important. Sheets hung on the bars? Bad no-no, but still not the same sort of serious screw up as the first two. No cameras? Hmmm - maybe, maybe not. The presence of cameras would help to rationalize the lack of patrols. I really don't CARE about the cameras very much, I want WARM BODIES PATROLLING!! Presumably, the stupidest guard hired is probably more intelligent than a robot sweeping a camera in a fixed arc, with predictably periodicity.
Oh yeah - they have to get PERMISSION from Albany to do a lockdown and a search of the prison? One more time, WTF?!?!
Can anyone imagine a battalion of Marines being required to get permission from the Pentagon, before conducting a perimeter sweep in Afghanistan?
Maybe that's a stupid question. We send troops into combat zone with truly fucked up "rules of engagement".
Whatever, the prison system is guilty of gross incompetence from the highest to the lowest levels. GROSS FUCKING INCOMPETENCE.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @09:39AM
Yes, they are. If they were more intelligent, they wouldn’t have worked as guards/wardens.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by choose another one on Monday June 22 2015, @10:31AM
For me only one thing stands out - at least the first part of this escape is exactly the f***ing same as the escape from alcatraz, hell these guys probably watched the movie.
Dummies in beds - wtf that one still works ? Nobody (in the prison service at least) learned anything even from the movie of the alcatraz escape, and years later some guys can still go and do the same thing all over again ?
IR cameras or sensor or night vision glasses will tell the difference between a cold dummy and a warm body. No motion or heat sensing alarms in the maintenance spaces ? I could understand that in alcatraz days when those things were rare / expensive, but these days they cost next to nothing,
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday June 22 2015, @11:11AM
The light wakes the prisoner? Minimize that with a red lens
Or, or...
The light wakes the prisoner? THEY'RE IN PRISON! Tough cookies!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 22 2015, @11:21AM
Yes, there is that. But, I would go with the red lens anyway. Keeping a dangerous man pissed off at you is likely to get you nominated for a Darwin Award. Prisoners aren't going to get a lot of sympathy from me, but intentionally irritating them just isn't smart. You might even bargain with them - move your cot so that I can see your head, and I won't HAVE to shine my light in your face. Or, just swap ends - put your head nearer the bars, and let your feet hang off far end of the cot, and I can see you. But, red lens for me. Besides which, I learned in the navy that night time red lighting helps your night vision. If I'm shining a bright white light ten to twenty feet from me, and I hear a noise fifty feet away, I won't be able to SEE in the shadows that far away. With the red light, I can glance away from the cell I'm lighting up, and still see pretty well.
So, call that red lens "self defense" for more than one reason.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2015, @03:49PM
You know that hindering people from sleep is a form of torture?
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday June 22 2015, @04:26PM
Yes. This is not.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Monday June 22 2015, @04:24PM
Regular light sweeps hinders good sleep. And a ton of muscles being grumpy next morning might translate to dead guard the next day. Being right doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good decision.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday June 22 2015, @04:02PM
See, this whole thing wouldn't have happened if they were using a queue or stack. Yeesh.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday June 22 2015, @07:28PM
Security was clearly a right hash
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 22 2015, @04:31PM
Anyone found a good documentary article on how they escaped? preferably with photos. I find this escape fascinating, "mission impossible" successfully executed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2015, @09:19AM
FWIW - recidivism rate for murderers are quite low e.g. they're very unlikely to do it again.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/once-a-criminal-always-a-criminal/ [cbsnews.com]
I suppose this assumes they're not serial killers or where the killing was due to some compulsion, and it was more personal.
So the odds of them screwing up/ending my life are so much lower than the odds of say some investment banker screwing us over again and again and again (affecting thousands or even millions of people).
And if your life-savings get wiped out when you're >50 there's a good chance that it could cause you to die significantly earlier.