9781422271018

Introduction

W hile most individuals probably think of Mexican and U.S. prisons as relatively secure, in actual fact, about three percent of all inmates escape at some point during their incarceration, according to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service. Prison breaks form the basis of some of the most exciting fiction and the most thrilling films. Some music artists have even written songs about the greatest of historical escapes. When it comes down to it, true life provides the most exciting of prison escape stories. Daring escape stories go all the way back to the American Civil War, when three Union officers repeatedly snuck into the room known as “Rat Hell” in Libby Prison, so named because rats invaded and overran it. Beginning with nothing but a pen knife, the officers eventually assembled 14 men to regularly dig a tunnel to escape. The Union prisoners, unaware of how near the prison was to the James River, continually experienced tunnel floods. Their first escape tunnel

Joaquín Guzmán Loera, aka “El Chapo.”

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Introduction