Berlin prison ridiculed for its ‘open door’ policy after three escapes within one week
Berlin authorities came under fire on Tuesday after a single city prison was hit by three jailbreaks or walkouts in a week, with five inmates still on the run.
The tabloid-style Bild daily labelled the security lapses “incomprehensible”, city state politicians urged the justice minister to step down, and Twitter users mocked the penal facility’s “open door” policy.
The first group escape saw four inmates aged 27 to 38 flee last Thursday from the Ploetzensee jail facility, now widely dubbed the capital’s “scandal prison”.
The convicts doing time for theft, extortion and aggravated assault were able to use an angle grinder and a huge hammer from their prison workshop to break out through a ventilation shaft before slipping underneath a fence to freedom.
A perimeter surveillance camera captured their escape, but wardens did not view the footage in real time and took 41 minutes to sound the alarm.
They could have left the prison … by simply walking out through the front door
On Friday it emerged during a headcount that a fifth prisoner, aged 30, had failed to return from day release on Thursday.