Here’s a very obscure and interesting fact about prison that a lot of people don’t seem to know: it’s hard to escape. I know this must seem mysterious and inscrutable, but it’s true. They built these things to keep people in. Guards, walls, snipers, barbed wire, fences, moats, guard dogs, cameras, floodlights, even the ocean — all designed to keep prisoners inside until the system says otherwise.
Still, there are more escape attempts a year than you might think. Predictably, most of these attempts were made through Dikembe Mutombo in Geico ads. Inevitably, a guard blocks you, wags his finger and plays a charming prank, “Not at my house.” This causes many jailbreak attempts to fail, and there are very bad results at best.
Speaking of garbage: Sidney da Cruz and Carlos Pereira attempted to escape the Delegacia de Furtos jail in Brazil by simply being thrown out with the trash. Easy as half-eaten pie. The pair waited until their lunch break was over and hid in two garbage bags among the uneaten food and dirty plates.
When a corrections officer approached the bags to take them out, he noticed that they were shaking. That’s a bit frustrating because, as any human with a working brain would know, staying still is a pretty part of pretending to be inanimate objects. The pair were discovered, and the guard who found them gave this beautifully simple account: “At first I thought there was a rat, but on closer inspection, I could see it was two inmates disguised as bags.”
