Seven inmates, led by convicted robber George Rivas, hatch an elaborate plan to escape from the Connally Unit prison in Texas, leading to one of the biggest manhunts in Texas history. The "Texas Seven" take over the maintenance department of the prison at lunchtime. They subdue and lock up 11 officers and workers, overpower guards in a security tower, steal weapons and drive away fully armed
Nuno Pontes and five inmates join forces to make a daring daylight break from maximum-security Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh, Pa. On the morning of the escape, they crawl through a tunnel they constructed and then pose as construction workers to walk past an armed guard. They intend to head to Mexico. However, their escape is short-lived. A drug overdose, a dramatic car chase and a tense armed standoff bring all six fugitives back behind bars.
Armed robber Dennis Hope is serving an 80-year sentence at the notorious Darrington Unit in Texas when he's caught up in a bloody prison riot. It's a brush with death which triggers his decision to risk escape. On the night of the escape, Hope and two accomplices sabotage the prison power system. Under cover of darkness they cut through the first prison fence and climb over the second. But that was the easy part: now they must get past the five mile search perimeter before they're caught.
Regarded as high risk due to repeated escape attempts, Quawntay Adams is transferred to a maximum-security jail in Alton, Ill. Despite the constant surveillance, he escapes through a ventilation window. As part of his plan, he manipulates an unwitting female accomplice to wait for him outside the prison and drive him to a nearby motel. But when police press her for details, she gives up his location, and he finds himself surrounded at the motel by police - and quickly on his way back to jail!
When gang leader George Hyatte escaped from prison custody outside a court in Tennessee, he had an unusual accomplice: a former prison nurse, Jennifer, who had become his wife. Over a torrid year, the couple had fallen in love and carried on an affair against prison regulations. Their breakout plan was simple, but potentially deadly. They would wait until George went to court, and in the parking lot Jennifer would demand at gunpoint that the prison officers release her husband.
John Parsons shoots an off-duty officer after a robbery and becomes one of Ohio's most infamous criminals. Placed in Ross County Jail, Parsons knows he'll likely face the death penalty and immediately begins planning his escape. He manages a hugely audacious escape using sheets and old newspapers to scale the wall of the recreation yard. Officers spend 83 days in a cat-and-mouse race in rural Ross County before an exhausted team of officers finally brings Parsons back to face trial.
Murderers Timothy Vail and Timothy Morgan plan to break out of the Elmira Prison in New York by chipping a hole through the concrete ceiling of their cell. Vail discovers an escape route via the roof, but it requires breaking through the ceiling of a top floor cell. Morgan has a cell on the top of F-Block, so Vail applies for a transfer to share with his buddy. The request is granted. On the run for two days in the woods, the two are finally captured by police in a dramatic takedown.
Hitching a ride out of prison? Armed robber Jody Thompson uses his charm and persuasion to land a prized job in the metal and furniture shop. Thompson then uses opportunism and nerve to hide in a furniture delivery truck, which drives him past guards out the prison gates. While Thompson is on the run, police track him down and engage in a high-speed car chase. Within minutes Thompson breaks into a home, steals a car and escapes. Three months later, Thompson is found in Las Vegas and captured.
Convicted armed robber Roy Harper is serving an 88-year sentence without parole at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. In Unit 32, the prison's supermax facility, Harper meets murderer John Woolard, an inmate aching to break out. See how these two criminals plan their escape. After hatching a plan to cut through their cell window at night, they make their big break, leaving a trail of destruction across the country.
When convict Lance Battreal hears of his father's heart attack, the desire to escape from Indiana's state prison and prove that he is a changed man consumes him. Together with his best prison buddy, he spends weeks planning an elaborate escape through a storm drain connected to one of the prison's tunnels. But as viewers will see, the real trouble starts when they finally make it out from behind bars.
It's 1976, the South African government is imprisoning radicals who are fighting against the country's racist policies. Tim Jenkin, an accused terrorist, explodes a leaflet bomb to spread a message of freedom. Jenkin and his friend are caught and put in Pretoria Prison. Jenkin's former job as a locksmith and his position in the prison wood shop are the lucky breaks that save them, as Jenkin works to discretely make a key to open his cell. Ten more doors stand between them and freedom.
For a dead man walking, escape seems impossible, but life inside prison is the only thing that's worse. Harold Laird had been at Stiles Unit in Texas for 10 years for the murder of two people. Refusing to join a racist prison gang left him with a bull's-eye on his back. But Laird's innate ability to tinker was his saving grace, as he used anything from cloth to dental floss to plan his great escape. After working his way through a locked door and two fences, see how Laird fights to escape.
Three prisoners evade capture for five days after escaping from an English prison.
Rondell Reed's argument with his boss turns deadly and he's placed in the maximum security unit at Indian River County Jail in Vero Beach, Fla. Rondell's determination to escape brings him to Levi, a prisoner already planning a way out. With a smuggled-in hacksaw, they saw through bars, escape through the vent and into the rec yard. The plan hinges on Levi's girlfriend driving agetaway car. But when Levi abandons Rondell, he's without a ride and a place to stay. See how long he can make it.
Gang members Tommy Valdez, Johnathon 'Snoopy' Rodriguez and Arturo Torres are locked up in the Grant County Detention Center in New Mexico, but they are determined to escape. National Geographic Channel goes inside their dramatic escape plan. See how they avoid guard checks and dig their way out to reach the prison roof. Now armed and high on drugs with help from other gang members, the three men make for the Mexican border, with the police in hot pursuit.
Keys are what locked them up, so why not use keys to escape? Desperate for freedom, Tim Jenkin builds wooden keys to use in an escape attempt from a high-security prison in South Africa. And Matthew Williams fashions keys out of metal to help his escape plan from an island prison in the United Kingdom.
In a Connecticut maximum security prison, Ronald Rutan meets Frank Vandever, a former stockbroker with a reputation for cross-dressing, who is aching to escape his 40-year sentence. Ronald fears the gangs in the prison, and he and Frank begin to plot their breakout plan. After cutting their way through window bars, running five miles and stealing a car, the guys escape, but not for long.
Two inmates desperate for their freedom devise a sophisticated plan to hacksaw through high-security prison bars in order to make a dramatic escape.
Violent threats force Harold Laird to use his inventive cunning to crack his cage. Three Southside gang members pop the lid on the prison pipe chase
