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).”

(Photo: Jeff Smith, right, with one of the guys he met in prison I guess…wait, no. It’s Bill Streeter.)

Jeff Smith, the Missouri state senator who was jailed last year after being found that he lied to the feds during questioning about a conspiracy with Voters for Truth to run negative ads against opponent Russ Carnahan, has written a little piece about his time in the clink and in it he answers questions like “What does ‘get chalked’ mean?”, “What’s a prison wallet?”, ”Did he stab anyone or become someone’s bitch?” (Answers: “to be murdered”, “your butt” and “inconclusive”)

A guard approached and escorted me to a bathroom without a door. Then another guard appeared. Gruff and morbidly obese, he spoke in a thick Kentucky drawl. “Stree-ip,” he commanded. I stripped.

“Tern’round,” he barked. I turned around.

“Open up yer prison wallet,” he ordered.

I looked at him quizzically.

“Tern’round and open yer butt cheeks.”

I complied.

We saw something like this in a movie once late at night…only it was two chicks and one of them was in prison for banging too many people and the other one had a black dildo instead of a police baton.

When I arrived at my unit, I was the only white person, which immediately made me a source of curiosity.

“White-collar?” one guy asked.

“Yup.”

“What you done did?”

“Lied to the feds.”

“Damn, how they know?” asked another.

“One of my best friends was wired.”

A chorus of “Punk-ass motherfucker!”s rained down.

Then somebody said, “Dude need to get chalked.” That was slang, I realized, describing a body at a crime scene.

The chorus went “Hmm-hmmmmm!”

What’s with the part at the end? “Hmm-hmmmmm!”? Was he in a group with Jackee Harry and whoever this lady is?

You can read the whole story on The Recovering Politican. The story is a lot like American History X except Smith isn’t a Skinhead and he neer mentions working in the laundry room…not sure if the bathroom scene lines up at all with Smith’s experience.

via kottke.org

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

…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