So I was watching another evening on NGC - you know where you go 'oh i'll watch this' and one cool show after another comes on and you keep watching for hours - and one of the shows was on prison breaks. They showed the escape plan of some guy and how he executed it pretty much perfecty.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/s ... 3925/facts (some facts)

Now...this is what 'got' me: the guy clearly was intelligent, resourceful and methodical and did just about everything he could do right. The perfect escape. He planned for contingencies, caused a total blackout, calculated the scope of the immediate search perimeter (and how fast he'd had to run to get out of it), even thought of stuff to throw off the dogs. Also cose Thanksgiving night for obvious reasons. All very well planned and with a clear goal in mind - his 2 fellow escapees for example just coasted along the plan and didn't even bother training running too much, which is borderline retarded if you know you're gonna have to run and are in freaking prison (nothing else to do anyway).

Now, this is what gets me: he gets out of the perimeter and jacks a car from an elderly person - well fine, makes sense. He drives to Dallas, which is some way away but by American standards definitely not the end of the world. Then he starts robbing stores. I mean wtf? You had this great plan, you do everything right, and then you think that your best shot is to start a spree of holdups in a nearby city?! Even then the cops don't catch him tho, and he goes to Memphis where he lives it up. Again, far away but not as far as you could be by any means.

I could have understood one, maybe even two holdups to get some starter cash, but what he did was pretty retarded. It seems to be a recurring thing though, guys busting out of jail -sometimes by ingenious means- and then resorting to some half-assed plan like that and getting caught in a pretty retarded manner. Wouldn't it make more sense to stay low and do completely anonymous stuff, like day labour, and take anonymous transport like trains and buses instead of driving around with a jacked vehicle? And then to get as far, FAR away as possible from the place they may be looking for you (because you have friends and family there). Also, he contacts his girl over the phone, which is the only way they ever figured out he was in Memphis to begin with. He even (somehow) mentioned over the phone the car he was driving and the bar he was at. THE FUCK.

Man, I mean seriously. Maybe I underestimate how it feels to be out of prison if you're serving 80 to life, living it up. Or maybe I overestimate the guy's intelligence and he's smart enough to hatch a great escape plan but not to think of long-term contingencies. Compared to most inmates he's probably a genius anyway though - unlike what movies would have us think, most criminals are anything but masterminding villains...most of them are actually really really retarded or mentally damaged to some extent.

I dunno, it just seemed so ridiculous. Make the perfect escape and then get busted like a n00b. Gawd.

P.S. the car he bought with his robbery money was a Jaguar. yeah...great for not wanting to be noticed. Why not buy a run-of-the-mill second hand car?

Sounds like a tard. Agreed though, his escape was obviously very methodically thought out... it seems that since he actually had time, he planned it out properly. But once he was out, he stopped planning and just started being retarded. Maybe he was on meds? I've known people that were bipolar (manic depressive) that were very normal when they were on their meds... but once off, they went whacko and would just do whatever they happened to feel like at the time, to the point they're pretty much a danger to themselves and others.

Yeah, good point about the meds. It was never mentioned, but he looked a little like he could have been on meds (yeah ok, you can't really tell but in some cases...you kinda can :p ). Probably was a combination of everything...maybe lack of meds, but definitely the fact that he was like "shit man, I've been in prison so long, not gonna live like a monk the moment I get out". So he got cash quickly and blew it on parties, booze and women.

Given that he was in for 80 years already and had been refused an early release before, chances are that he got as much out of it as he could for a while, at least compared to other inmates. Still, can't help but wonder that putting in a little more thought would have gone him a much longer way.

As an aside: apparently he was doing 80 for an armed robbery without anyone getting injured - in Texas. Then they (inmates) talked a bit about how 'Texas justice' was pretty rough, with a zero tolerace policy from 1950 or so on. Is it really that harsh? I'm not exactly an expert on jail sentences, but I'd say 10 years or so seems like a more 'normal' sentence for a crime like that. I don't necessarily think it's bad to have more severe punishment (altho 80 is a bit steep), I'm just wondering.

Most stories we get about jail time is getting a ridiculously short sentence for heinous crimes... or the death penalty. I haven't heard the reverse, but I'm no expect, so it's possible.