"a little-known fact about minimum-security prisons in the state: Inmates can walk away.... doors are often kept unlocked to accommodate inmates who come and go.... Officers do not always monitor the entrances"
Are you frikkin' kidding me?
Lock your doors, Bay-Staters and beyond!
"Search continues for prison escapee; Inmate with history of violent crime was recently indicted on rape charge" by Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff | November 29, 2009
Manson Brown, an inmate with a history of violent crime and escape from confinement, walked off from a minimum-security setting in Bridgewater on Friday - a week after prosecutors had publicly linked Brown to the rape of a Cambridge woman more than a decade ago, but before anyone in the state prison system could place him in a more secure environment, officials said.
State and Middlesex County officials could not immediately explain the absence of communication that Brown apparently exploited in the week between his Nov. 19 indictment on the new charges and his escape. “It was a unique set of circumstances, and unfortunately they played out this way,’’ said Christopher Fallon, a spokesman for the Department of Correction.
Brown, 51, remained on the loose last night, with officers from the State Police and the Department of Correction’s apprehension squad searching for him. He walked away from the Old Colony Correctional Center some time between 5:40 and 6:30 p.m. Friday, possibly slipping out of the front gate, said Fallon.... Brown was due to be released in October 2012 after a 10-year sentence following a conviction for home invasion and armed robbery unrelated to the Cambridge case.
Brown had progressed from maximum to medium to minimum security - three of the state’s four security levels - in the transition to rehabilitation and release from that sentence, Fallon said. Only prerelease remained, a setting in which inmates work in the community.
But on Nov. 19, the Middlesex District Attorney’s office secured a grand jury indictment against Brown on charges alleging that he broke into a Franklin Street residence, raped a woman who was sleeping beside her 2-year-old son, and stole cash and jewelry from the home, in the early morning hours of Sept. 7, 1996. DNA taken from Brown’s blood sample reportedly matched crime scene evidence.
The district attorney’s office announced that indictment in a Nov. 20 press release, and the Globe reported on it Friday as part of a wider story about the importance of DNA evidence in fighting crime and about the delays in justice that can result from a crime-lab backlog. Brown’s blood sample was drawn in 2005. Brown was transferred to minimum security last July and was working in the kitchen of the Bridgewater complex that serves the Old Colony medium and minimum-security inmates as well as the nearby Bridgewater State Hospital and the state’s treatment center for alcohol and substance abuse. He returned to his quarters and was reported present during an informal 5:40 p.m. count but was missing at a formal 6:30 p.m. count, Fallon said....
Bridgewater’s medium-security setting has two fences, guard towers, and a microwave detection system for sensing motion. The minimum-security setting has a fence, but it has an open gate, Fallon said. Brown, who previously lived in Mattapan, is an African-American male who stands 5-foot-8 and weighs 145 pounds. He was last seen wearing a white T-shirt and gray sweatpants. Officials asked anyone who spots a man matching Brown’s description to call 911 immediately, cautioning the public not to approach him.
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As State Police continued an exhaustive manhunt last night for an inmate who escaped from a Bridgewater prison Friday after learning he had been indicted on a new rape charge, a union official blamed prison officials for placing him in a minimum-security facility....
Christopher Fallon, a spokesman for the Department of Correction, said statistics were not immediately available on how many inmates escape from the state’s minimum-security prisons each year, but Kenneway estimated it happens about four or five times....
What, he wasn't prepared for the press conference?
They don't have records! BULLS***!!!!
And this next bit you just are not going to believe:
"Fenceless prisons defended after latest escape; Most inmates are motivated to stay" by Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff | December 2, 2009
A multistate manhunt for an inmate who strolled out of a Bridgewater prison last week after learning he had been indicted on a rape charge has drawn attention to a little-known fact about minimum-security prisons in the state: Inmates can walk away.
Correctional officials acknowledged yesterday that only one of the nine facilities that house the state’s 1,261 minimum-security inmates is surrounded by a fence, and doors are often kept unlocked to accommodate inmates who come and go to eat, work, exercise, and attend programs. Yet, Manson Brown, whose escape from the Old Colony Correctional Center last Friday has triggered a massive search, is the only state inmate at a minimum security prison to walk off this year, according to correctional officials. Seven fled from minimum-security prisons last year; just one did in 2007.
Prison officials said they have no plans to tighten security at the state’s minimum-security prisons, which are run in much the same way as other minimum-security facilities nationwide....
Yesterday, helicopters and bloodhounds joined in the search....
Officers do not always monitor the entrances at minimum-security facilities, but conduct hourly checks on the inmates, said Christopher Fallon, a spokesman for the department. “There is a level of accountability,’’ Fallon said. “We rely on security staff to do their jobs.’’
Where?
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Still not found, readers.
