How often and under what circumstances do escapes from prison and jail result in violence? An examination of the “powder keg” theory

Abstract

Little research has examined the “powder keg” theory (that escapes are inherently violent), which has been used in U.S. courts to apply sentencing enhancements to people convicted of escaping. We examine open-source data on 610 escapees from jails and prisons to understand the prevalence and scope of escape-related violence, and the relationship between theoretically relevant covariates and these outcomes. Though our data is not representative of all U.S. escapes, we found that 19.2% of the incidents in our sample resulted in violence, with more violence occurring at the breakout (10.9%) than in the community (8.4%) or during recapture (5.7%). Escapees were more likely to use violence when they were in secure custody or outside the facility, if they fled during morning or evening hours, or if they were incarcerated in a jail rather than a lower security prison. These findings yield numerous implications for theory, policy, and practice.