Security procedures blamed for ‘Shawshank Redemption’-style prison break

ALBANY, N.Y., June 7 (UPI) — A year after two convicted killers escaped a New York state prison, a government report castigates inattention by prison employees to security issues.

The New York State Office of the Inspector General began a probe of Clinton Correctional Facility, in Dannemora, on June 15, while the two escapees were still missing.

Richard Matt and David Sweat, each serving time for murder, escaped nine days earlier; a massive regional manhunt found Matt on June 26, when he was shot and killed. Sweat was captured two days later, and is now in another correctional facility.

The 150-page report submitted by Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott blames “systemic failures in management” for the jailbreak, noting the escape was planned for months. The report said Sweat left his cell nearly nightly to cut through brick to reach tunnels leading to pipes which connected to a manhole outside the prison. It notes nightly head counts and bed checks were ignored, as were unannounced cell searches.

“In fact, a documented search of Matt’s cell on March 21, 2015, failed to detect the 18½-inch-by-14½-inch hole in the rear wall of his 48-square-foot cell.

“In the time Sweat was out of his cell over a three-month period, a total of more than 400 counts should have been conducted. If only one of the counts was done properly, the escape plan would have been instantly stopped.”

The report also mentions the failure of the State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision for its failure to discover the romantic relationship between the escapees and Joyce Mitchell, an employee in the tailor shop where the men worked. She smuggled tools, including hacksaw blades, into the prison for their use, aware she would not be searched at the front gate. She eventually pleaded guilty to aiding the escapes of Matt and Sweat, and is serving a two and one-half year sentence in prison.

Mitchell must also pay $80,000 in restitution. If basic protocols were followed in the prison, the report said, the state would have saved $23 million in law enforcement overtime pay.

The report recommends better front gate screening of prison employees, more diligent head counts of prisoners at night, stricter enforcement of policies regarding prisoner and employee interaction, and more cameras and electronic monitoring devices within the prison.