How Often Do Prisoners Escape From New York State Prisons?

How secure are the prisons in NY? When a prisoner escapes from prison it is certainly concerning to most law-abiding citizens, but what about those who live in prison communities? The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision operates 42 facilities around the state. Each of the prisons is located in a community, some bigger, some smaller, but a community nevertheless. I could not imagine living near a prison when an inmate escapes. The feeling of fear and unease must be tremendous for those New Yorkers who do.

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As of the December 2024 Monthly Report, NYS prisons house 33,465 inmates. Of those, one or two is bound to try to escape, right? Especially the ones who are serving life sentences with nothing to lose.

How Often Do Prisoners Escape From New York Prisons?

You might think prison breaks are frequent in New York, but they actually are not. The last prison escape from a maximum security facility was in 2015 from Clinton Correctional Facility. At 5:17 am on June 6, 2015, corrections officers discovered that inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat were missing. They had cut a hole in their cell walls and eventually escaped into the city sewer system, according to Wikipedia. Matt was shot and killed during his capture on June 26, in Malone, New York. Two days later, Sweat was captured in Constable, New York on June 28. He was shot but survived. Sweat was sentenced to three-and-a-half to seven years for the escape, which cost NY around $23 million.

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Prior to the Clinton escape, the previous maximum security escape was in July 2003, when Timothy A. Vail and Timothy G. Morgan, both convicted murderers broke out of Elmira Correctional Facility, according to the Star Gazette. They were captured two days later.

When it comes to medium security prisons, the last escape was more than 30 years ago, in 1992, from Mid-Orange Correctional Facility. Two prisoners from the Mid-Orange Correctional Facility in Warwick, New York, managed to flee the facility. Unbeknownst to the police, they had arrested the two escapees during a traffic stop. Police said they were not aware of the escape, according to UPI.

At least 65 prisoners have escaped from prisons around the state. That is less than 1 percent of the total population (as of December 2024).

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