Just to keep the math easy, lets say St. Louis actually takes down 10 criminals a day. 5 of which are released for various reasons and 2 went down in a blaze of gun fire leaving just 3 criminals we need to put in jail. Of those 3, it seems like at least 1 will just walk out in to the street. “Hey you guys coming?!”, he’ll yell at the remaining 2. “Nah. It’s sloppy joe night. We’ll just escape next week. Salisbury steak sucks anyway.”

Ok, so maybe our numbers aren’t exactly scientific, but we bet they’re closer than we’d all like to think. It’s freaking incredible, but not only can St. Louis not contain the constant crime wave in it’s boundaries, but even the few it does manage to catch can easily leak back out in to the population with little more than a few bed sheets and a passing knowledge of any Hollywood prison escape plot.

We bring this up only because…

Police are looking for a 31-year-old man who they say escaped from the medium security prison on Hall Street in north St. Louis on Friday night.

…and…

The City’s Corrections Commissioner was placed on leave yesterday.

The prisoner has since been caught and the Mayor has publicly stated that he Commissioner was placed on leave before the most recent escape, but you gotta think that helped the Mayor’s case. Pretty tough to argue that everything’s fine, baring a few exceptions earlier this summer, when right in the middle of your plea another guy escapes. It’s like trying to tell your wife you have no idea who Cinnamon is, or why she’d leave a message on your voice mail about picking up her nipple ring and body glitter tube she left in your car…all while you’re actively rattling the little general around the chunnel of someone named Kandy.

The Mayor went on to say…

After a review of the facilities by Operations Director (and police captain) Sam Dotson, the Public Safety Department notified the Corrections Commissioner on Friday that he had been placed on forced leave, an employment status that is exactly what it sounds like. The details are a personnel matter. The commissioner is a civil service employee and he has range of reviews and hearings available to him.

The current system at the jails in unacceptable. Keeping the prisoners inside the jails is the barest minimum requirement, and it has not been met. Looking forward, changes are needed.

Wow, you think? Locking the damn door seems like the first step…maybe a moat…or perhaps it’s finally time to drop that “honor system” agreement between 7pm and 5am? Ok, it’s probably not that simple, but it can’t be far off. When news breaks of yet another escape, we generally aren’t talking about Andy Dufresne breaking out of Shawshank here, we’re talking about gang-bangers that just crawled out a freaking window. This can’t be that difficult of a problem. Lots of other prison systems don’t have 5 escapes a year, but yet, once again, St. Louis manages to find a way to suck at a high-level when it comes to basic city government functions. Bravo.

On the plus side, St. Louis’ criminal tourism program has never produced better results: “Need a vacation from Detroit? Rob people and spend your money in lovely St. Louis! Lots of available cars and money in the southern area, with plenty of gun violence in the north and eastern areas to keep yourself sharp. Don’t forget, early incarceration checkouts are available! Just dial 0-0-0 to call the front desk (that’s also the combination to the front door and all cells).”

In a story so weird, only a giant, airport stomping storm could blow it off the front page, two prisoners escaped from the St. Louis Justice Center. A jail so high-tech that it’s only venerability are movie escape plots.

Inmates Vernon Lamont Collins, 34, and David White, 33, apparently broke out a front window and scaled down the front of the building at 200 S. Tucker Boulevard using black bedsheets tied together with rope. The mostly translucent window on the west facade faces Tucker, directly across the street from City Hall.

Gene Stubblefield, the city’s commissioner of corrections, said the inmates climbed through a ceiling access panel into a utility space above the ceiling of the second-floor infirmary where they were staying. He said he didn’t know how they opened the panel, and that the men apparently cut rebar to gain access to the outer glass window and broke the glass with an unknown ”instrument.”

St. Louis corrections officials should also make sure sewage pipes aren’t breakable with rocks during thunderstorms and that Sean Connery is never falsely imprisoned there.

In a fun twist, the two escapees also happen to be some of the worst people ever (Thank god that the kid in jail for a bag of weed is still locked up, keeping us all safe from his incomprehensible giggling and horrible BO!).

Both escapees are violent, officials say. One is charged with stabbing a man 21 times in March. The other allegedly stabbed a woman and used her child as a human shield in January.

Lovely. Throw in the charge of deleting your Tivo recordings before you can watch them and you’re looking at previously unseen evil levels! Does that mean that we are talking about two geniuses that masterminded an escape scheme so perfect that it could not have been stopped, or are we talking about two violent retards that just kept doing a horrible job of escaping, but, luckily for them, the people that run the prison were just a little more stupid and or lazy than they were? Here’s a hint: The jail in in St. Louis and run by the city.

Rainford, [Mayor Slay's Chief of Staff], said: “This was not some master-minded scheme. This was one knuckle-headed corrections officer.”

[Gene Stubblefield, the city's commissioner of corrections] told reporters that a nurse had heard noises coming from the inmate’s cell three times and asked the corrections officer on duty to investigate each time. But the corrections officer never entered the cell, Stubblefield said.

At least one of the times, an inmate explained the noises by saying he was “shadow boxing.”

“What was he hitting?” Stubblefield asked, in disbelief. “He never went in the cell. Never went in the cell!”

As stupid as it sounds, maybe actually holding on to the criminals may be asking for too much for a city with crime like ours. Baby steps folks. Hey, they even already caught one of the escapees! Granted they’ve only managed to catch the one with two broken legs, and rocking the perfect disguise of a “stupid looking…Bruce Lee wig” because nothing says “Move right along officer, nothing of interest here!” like a black guy with two broken legs rocking Bruce Lee hair!  …we’re sure the other guy with a good set of wheels will be apprehended any time now, especially if he crosses the border in to a jurisdiction that knows what they’re doing.

Pro Tip: Maybe, just for the next couple of days, don’t answer the door to any large “Bible Salesmen” in Bruce Lee wigs holding a baby like a shield.

via STLToday

Three inmates have escaped from the Daviess/DeKalp County jail in Pattonsburg, Missouri by crawling under a fence. They escaped in to the small town with no shoes but wearing their standard-issue prison orange jumpsuit. Obviously, this has the prison and the town on full alert.

Three inmates, including a convicted murderer, escaped from a northwest Missouri jail by crawling under a fence, leading authorities to lock down the surrounding community’s school and to go door-to-door warning residents.

“Quick! Some one stuff a god damned towel under that fence!”

“I don’t normally lock my doors, but I am now. I’m sure everybody is.” said Karen Shepherd, the city clerk.

The escaped inmates are Timothy Baudour, 34, who was convicted of assault, Nicholas McCleary, 26, in on a property damage charged followed up by one failed jail escape, and Carlos Sarmiento, 57, who was convicted of first-degree murder, armed criminal action, and second-degree bad 80′s hair, as evident by the photo above where Sarmiento is rocking a pretty criminal “sidespike”.

Authorities are worried that if left to his own devices, Sarmiento might progress in to bad 90′s hair like the “under-cut” if he isn’t captured soon…or he might beat someone else to death with a claw hammer. Residents are avised to stay indoors, and keep a look out for a “person of interest” in the investigation and possible Sarmiento accomplice judging by the obvious hair-style connections:

Police continue the hunt while the small town of 260 lock their doors, leaving their kids have to suffer through indoor recess. Floor hockey can only take you so far.

via KMOV

Update: After making all the way to his native Warrenton, MO, his parents urged him to turn in himself, which is what he did Friday.

Original post follows…

Smirky McPimplehead over here somehow managed to escape the dead fish handshake like grip of the St. Louis County police Wednesday night when he jumped out of the transport van in downtown St. Charles.

Jonathan Banta, 21, of the 5000 block of West Clay Street in St. Charles, jumped out of the van while it was stopped at Fifth Street and Boone’s Lick Road in St. Charles about 11:30 p.m.

Rick Eckhard, a spokesman for the St. Louis County Police Department, said Banta was wanted on a warrant in St. Ann for felony burglary. Police had picked him up from the St. Charles County Jail, he said.

How the hell did he escape from the van?

Eckhard said he did not know how Banta escaped from the van.

“To be fair” Eckhard followed up, “He did call shotgun right when we exited the jail for transport. Rules are rules.”

So there you go St. Charles you got this guy running around now. Have fun with that. He’ll be the crazy looking skinny white guy with ill-advised facial hair. Luckily everyone else without a job running around at all hours, between the ages of 16 and 30 looks just like that in St. Charles. Shouldn’t be an issue.

via STLToday

…but they could barely fill their lungs with the sweet taste of air before getting caught and going right back to jail.

Eric Glenn Gray and Kurt Michael Wallace were discovered hiding in a vacant house in the 5900 block of Wabada at 5:45 p.m.  They were arrested without incident.

Pussies. What ever happened to “You’ll never take me alive!”?

St. Louis Corrections Department Director Gene Stubblefield said Gray and Wallace were being held in the Administrative Segregation Unit at the Workhouse because they had been a problem in the past. While there, they deliberately flooded their cell to gain access to the lobby area. They were allowed to clean their cells, which Stubblefield said is against protocol.

Is it usually a good idea to put to “trouble-making” felons together in jail?

While out, they completed their chore, but the officer did not make sure they returned to their cell.

Isn’t really the only job of a prison guard is to make sure that the prisoners are in their cells and if they are allowed to leave momentarily, make sure they go back in? Are we missing something? That really is your only job. What else is there?

Stubblefield said they will look at the entire staff and process because something “grossly went wrong.”

Good call.

We saw a movie about prison once. Really crazy stuff goes on in there…girls just go crazy and never wear bras. Also the guards use their sticks differently…it still seemed like it hurt, but like “hurt so good”.

via KSDK

So here’s the scam: The state of Missouri arrests and jails people.  Sometimes those people leave for whatever “unauthorized” reason, like prisoners that walk away from half-way homes or just those that just straight up escape…and when that happens, the State just takes the money they left in their prison bank accounts.

Is that right?

The Missouri Department of Corrections says “Yes!” but Auditor Susan Montee says “No!”

Call it the $1 million state bonanza, courtesy of escaped prisoners and halfway house walkaways.

Over about 15 years, thousands of Missouri inmates and parolees who left the state’s custody without authority also left behind money in prison system bank accounts.

Now, the Missouri Department of Corrections is using the money to upgrade computers for staff members who run the inmate canteen, or store.

In an audit released Monday, Montee said that after child support and other court-ordered obligations for the inmates were paid, the remaining funds should go to the state’s unclaimed property division.

That means the money could end up in the escapees’ hands — if they returned to claim it. A spokesman for state Treasurer Clint Zweifel, who runs the unclaimed property division, said the office was reviewing the audit.

So now they are fighting over past court rulings and arguing over who owns what but really, I think the answer here is simple: STOP LETTING PEOPLE ESCAPE SO FREAKING EASILY AND THIS WON’T BE AN ISSUE!

Are people just walking out of prisons?  And why aren’t we notified of this more often?  …and if the prison gets to keep the money, why wouldn’t a crooked warden like on Shawshank Redemption just let a particularly rich criminal walk out?  Seems like a win for both the inmate and the system…still a “lose” for that first girl he runs across that looks like the wife he killed to get in there but whatever.  Thats just one chick.  We are talkin’ guard tower lounge chairs!

P.S.  The one thing that strikes me as odd is that if one of those criminals said “Well yeah I took it, but because that person left it behind!” it wouldn’t stand up in court.  Thoughts?

via STLToday