On July 16, an inmate serving four years on felony charges of forgery, resisting arrest and possessing methamphetamines, got into a vehicle following an evening support group and didn't return to the Community Corrections Center-Omaha.Â
A month later, 39-year-old Matthew Layman still hasn't been found.
On July 24, Scott Underwood, 43, serving a four-year sentence for third-degree assault, third-offense DUI and avoiding arrest, was reported missing from the Community Corrections Center-Lincoln. He was later located and is now at the Diagnostic and Evaluation Center.
On Aug. 1, 36-year-old Matthew Saxton, serving a four-to-seven-year sentence for DUI fourth offense and leaving the scene of an accident, left the Community Corrections Center in Omaha to go to work, but ended up at his girlfriend's house. The couple had an argument, and Saxton removed his ankle monitor. He hasn't been found.
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On Aug. 14, Jeremy Hayes, serving a 42-month sentence for possessing a controlled substance and possession of a deadly weapon by a prohibited person, left the Community Corrections Center in Lincoln to attend a community meeting. Hayes, 39, was later found and is now at the Diagnostic & Evaluation Center.
These recent "walkaways" from the state's community custody prisons are just a few of the 254 inmates who have escaped since 2011, with 171 of those escaping from Community Corrections in Lincoln, according to data from the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services.
It's an issue that lands Nebraska's correctional system in the upper 25% in the country when it comes to the number of escapes.
Most of Nebraska's escapes occur from the community corrections centers in Lincoln and Omaha, the lowest custody level and the least restrictive environment, with a few escapes from other state prisons.Â
In 2016, the most recent national data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Nebraska had 17 incidents of inmate escapes documented, more than 38 other states and the District of Columbia.
Nebraska was right behind New York, with 19 inmates escaping in 2016, but New York had about 50,700 inmates that year compared to Nebraska's 5,300 inmates. That made escapes about 855% more likely in Nebraska than New York.
And 2016 was the community corrections prisons' best year of the past decade in terms of the low number of escapes. There was a sharp increase in 2017, when 33 inmates escaped from the two prisons. In 2018, 28 escaped, and 26 the year after. So far this year, 14 have escaped.
"The increase in 2017 was reviewed and no broad causal factors were identified," NDCS spokeswoman Laura Strimple said. "There is some belief that the perceived success of one walkaway leads to additional attempts, and subsequent captures and prosecutions lead to fewer attempts."Â
The data does not definitively validate or dispute this belief.
From 2011 to 2016, an average of one out of every 187 Nebraska inmates escaped each year, compared to the national escape rate of about one out of every 653 inmates over the same five years — putting Nebraska's escape rate about 349% higher than the national average.
Many of the inmates housed at the state's community corrections prisons are nonviolent offenders, which means the majority of escapes don't get much attention.
The two community corrections prisons in Lincoln and Omaha allow inmates who are nearing the end of their sentence to participate in certain opportunities, including going into the community to job hunt and attending local colleges and universities, without supervision. Â
"There are very few instances of violence after escapes — they're not Bonnie and Clyde after they get out," said Danielle S. Rudes, deputy director at the Center for Advancing Correctional Excellence in Fairfax, Virginia. "Most go to drug use, go to their families or go on the run."
But some who escape are violent offenders.
Last year, Anthony Gafford, who was convicted of second-degree murder in Douglas County, escaped from Community Corrections in Lincoln and fled to Las Vegas. The Corrections Department faced backlash for not reporting that Gafford was on the run for more than 48 hours, prompting the department to change its policy on media notifications. The department now regularly reports walkaways after they're determined missing.
"In order to provide information and also educate the public about walkaways, we started reporting on them in early 2019," Strimple said. "There is a frequent misunderstanding that community custody is the same as minimum custody."
Community custody allows more inmate freedom and walkaway opportunities.Â
In terms of protocol for reporting walkaways, an inmate who walks away from a federal minimum security facility is placed on escape status, and notifications are made to the U.S. Marshals Service, local media and external law enforcement, said Emery Nelson, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Corrections consistently uses the term "walkaways" because these inmates walk away from prison, typically without elaborate premeditated escape plans.
But, inmates who illegally leave a state corrections facility for days at a time, whether they walked away or scaled a barbed wire fence, have escaped. On sentencing forms, inmates who are not located after they walk away have their departure listed as escape and are counted as escapes in federal data.
Inconsistency in labeling is common across the entire correctional system, and sometimes classifications are tweaked to the advantage of prisons, said Rudes, who is also a qualitative researcher and associate professor at George Mason University.
"Some (studies) define it as a premeditated, dangerous, tunneling through the wall, 'Shawshank Redemption'-type escape, while others define it to include opportunistic escapes like walkaways," she said.
Of the 40 inmates who escaped from the two Nebraska community corrections centers since 2019, at least eight have not been found, according to Corrections news releases, available from the time of the Gafford incident to current day.
No clear attribution is made on why so many inmates — an average of 25 yearly since 2011 — are walking away from facilities.Â
"Every failure on the part of one of the people we house is a concern for NDCS," Strimple said. "They intentionally walk away from the community custody for a variety of reasons."
Those reasons could include anxiety and family issues, she said. Taking measures to prevent walkaways is a priority.
"Others will leave just prior to release, parole or probation, knowing that once they are picked up, they will spend more time in prison," Strimple said. "The idea of succeeding in the community is too intimidating."
As research and data on escapes is limited, there are differing views as to why they occur.Â
Inconclusive research shows inmates are less likely to walk away from facilities if they have things they need there, like drug and alcohol therapy, recreation and frequent visitors, Rudes said. Basically, if they have satisfactory living conditions, they may be less inclined to leave, she said.
The creation of a federal database or state databases with more precise, accessible escape information would allow researchers, corrections officials and the public to better understand who escapes and why, Rudes said.
Instead, information about what goes on inside correctional systems is often buried.
There have been instances when inmates tell Rudes a completely different story about an incident, for example an inmate's suicide, than the account listed on the official death form.
There is no way to be sure who, if anyone, is fabricating what events took place, but correctional facilities do not want a lot of suicides at their facility, "because people will start asking, what's going on there?" she said.
Escapes are no different.
"Prisons aren't excited generally about people getting prison escape data," Rudes said. "If I'm a warden or a corrections officer, I don't want an escape on my watch, and I might work a little to keep it quiet."