A recent question on Quora asks, ‘how difficult is it to escape from prison?’ Tim Dees, a retired police officer, gives his response. Add your own in the comments.
It depends on what kind of prison you’re in, and what your custody classification is. If you’re in a max or supermax security prison at the highest custody class, it would be very, very difficult. People like Robert Hanssen (former FBI agent who sold classified info to the Russians) barely see daylight, and only a few people see him. In extreme cases, the custody arrangements aren’t all that much of a departure from those of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. I read about (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553560239) an inmate at Leavenworth Federal Prison who had murdered a corrections officer (CO) while in custody. His accommodations were like that. The lights in his cell were never turned out, he never got outside, and the COs had a pact that no one would speak to him.
It wouldn’t be enough to bribe a corrections officer or smuggle in some plastic explosive (a la Whiplash in Iron Man 2). There are multiple layers of security and people dedicated to the idea that these people are going to die in prison, no matter how long it takes.
On the other end of the spectrum are restitution centers and work camps, where inmates may be sent off unsupervised to perform work every day, and are on their honor to come back when they’re supposed to. The vast majority do, because they want to get their sentences done and out of the way. Occasionally one will walk away, and they’re usually found within a few days or weeks.
Even most max or medium-security facilities have low-risk inmates who perform work in buildings or outside areas of the grounds where they could walk away or be picked up by a confederate, if they were so inclined. This also happens from time to time, but most of them behave themselves because their low-security status makes their life in prison a lot easier than it would be if they were branded an escape risk and put on close hold status.
In the middle are medium-security places where inmates have concealed themselves inside shipping containers or laundry bags, under trucks, and beneath truckloads of garbage. Inmates have nothing but time to think up ways to get around the institution’s security procedures, and many don’t really care if the conditions of their imprisonment change. They tend to live in the moment and don’t think about the future or the consequences of an action.
Many inmates are quite bright. For a time in the 1970s, the unincorporated town of Tamal, California had the highest per capita population of Mensa members of any city in the world. Never heard of Tamal? San Quentin State Prison is pretty much its only industry.
