The. the. Everyone has an opinion whether its politics, religion, popular culture or brand of coffee. Every one has a preference for most people in our opinion, is set in stone. It's in emotional choice is rooted in habit it safe and comforting, but some opinions are dead. For example, ask anyone. You know what their greatest fear is and you'll get a five minute answer. Their pulse will raise hack, might even shudder in front of you. No one wants to die and no one likes to feel unsafe, and that means every one has one big fear: Maybe it's the thought of being buried alive, trapped inside a can

I need space while hundreds of pounds of dirt are shovelled on top of the only exit, maybe it's the thought of drowning or being kidnapped, but here's the secrets. Most big fears are really just all about the same thing. Nearly all of them are about lou in control. There are few places in modern culture that represent the loss of choice, the loss of freedom than the loss of safety more than prison. It's a setting that fills us with dread and inspires hopelessness, but somehow also remains oddly attractive films like shawshank redemption and the green mile and small screen hits I served sixty days in each stand as a testament to that obsession, and rightly so. Prison too many is a dark collection of pain, despair guild. and hatred, and while it might not be the same as physically being buried alive, it never fails to strike fear into even the strongest of hearts.

But our modern prison system didn't start out that way. Instead, it was built on hope, an opportunity and change Like all good intentions, though, those goals have been worn down over time by the worst of human nature, whatever hope and lights they might have tried to bring into the world has been washed away by horrible darkness. and no prison represents that evolution more accurately than eastern state penitentiary. I'm erin monkey and this is lower. The idea A prison has been around since the dawn of written language. Early legal codes dating back as far as four thousand years ago, listed punishment for illegal behave

back. Then it was all about retaliation for wrong doing. But imprisonment was right on the horizon. The ancient greeks dabbled, with the notion of captivity in athens, the prison there was known as the dismal terry on, which meant the place of chains, and you get the idea. I'm sure it was the romans, though, who the concept of prison and turned it into an art form and trust me. They pulled. No punches. The romans built prisons in the worst places imaginable if it was unpleasant or nasty, it was perfect for holding criminals. They used basements abandoned stone, quarries and even metal cages The infamous maritime prison in ancient rome was literally built into the city's sewer system. Prisoners eighth and slept among piles of wet rancid human waste. With the advent of the castle in europe, captivity moved inside the fortress becoming an extension of the crown. There was a disk

you have power in a sense in order to encourage people to obey and respect the ruler of the land, they were taught to fear the power those rulers wielded, but Even then, prison was only a sort of purgatory. A waiting room for the final verdict was rarely the end itself. Prison for centuries was where criminals would await their trial, and in that way it was often times the most pleasant bits of the process after their sentence was handed down, the punish it was intensely harsh, painful, whipping physical mutilation, branding hot irons, and even public execution were all waiting for them outside the walls of their cell but all of that changed in the eighteenth century. The age of enlightenment brought with it a new focus on rational fought, which led to public outcry against violent punishment. Instead, people called

for a new type of prison, one that would inspire moral reform and help criminals become better people. It sounded good on paper, and so many countries got behind the idea. The british parliament pass the penitentiary act in seventeen. Seventy nine introducing the concept of state prisons. Prison populations in england had multiplied following the loss of the northern american colonies, filling up quickly with traders and rebels. Its ironic, when you think about it, our own declaration of independence led to an increase of captivity and imprisonments back home across the atlantic, one of the stock Mr voices for prison reform in the newly formed united states of america was of all people, Benjamin franklin in seventeen, eighty seven, while the constitution was being crafted in philadelphia Conklin was gathering others in his home near by to discuss the poor conditions of the local prison known as walnut street jail

Rather than individual cells prisoners. There were gathered into groups inside large pens. There was no segregation, so men and women, along with young children, were all living in the same space. Inmates ran the spectrum from simple thieves, too cold blooded killers, it wasn't safe and it was common for assault and violence to take place. Unchecked there, those being held for trial, were forced by their own food and water jailers would even sell heat in the winter. That's how bad it had become so franklin and his, fellow reformers demanded change. There were immediate effects that changed much of the system there, but the biggest impact would it be seen for another. Forty years after decades, of campaigning, funding must finally approved for a new prison.

This building will have a different sort of name. Today when we hear the word penitentiary, we think of it as a generic term for a prison, but in the early eighteen hundreds at carried a specific meaning. The root of the word is penitent, which means to be repentant to seek change, and that's the attitude that this new prison was meant to embody a building full of inmates who are no longer awaiting a violent end to their lives, but instead were improving themselves on the outside eastern states was designed to look like a gothic castle, intimidating imposing an impenetrable one

Could the exterior and most people with throw away their life of crime? At least that was the theory inside though it was different when inmate number one entered the building on october, twenty fifth of eighteen, twenty nine he was ushered into a state of the art facility criminals were housed in private cells with shower bath and toilets. Central heating pipes ran through the building and into each cell keeping the inmates warm in the winter. The original cell blocks even included skylights, and this was a huge change President Andrew Jackson, sitting in his office in the white house at the time, didn't even have those luxuries, but the lack of modern amenities was offset by the freedom he enjoyed, which has more than we can say.

for the inmates at eastern state, and it was only downhill from there. Central heating and individual toilets sounded like a fantastic idea, but there were problems with them. From the start, the plumbing that carried the hot water to each of the cells ran through tunnels that also house the sewer pipes, as you can imagine, applying heat on a twenty four seven basis to pipes that carried human waste is never a good idea because of this, the first few cell blocks that were concerned.

that suffered from some offensive. Odors early doorways in the building were tiny, requiring inmates to stoop low to pass through, and those doors didn't even open up into the hall inside the building. Instead, the cell doors open outward into tiny courtyards, where each prisoner was encouraged to be active to garden or even to meditate quietly separating each courtyard was a ten foot. Tall wall meant to discourage communicate. in between the prisoners. All of this complexity was designed to create an atmosphere of isolation. The toilet system was built the way it was because the prison staff needed to be able to remotely flush the toilets twice a week. Rather than give the inmates control over that flushing, you see could be used as a method of indication and for those rare moments when a prisoner was being moved through a cell block and could possibly be seen by other inmates. They did so with a cloth bag over their heads. Walking in on their first day being moved from

one block to another, even going out into their private yard, each prisoner wore a cloth bag, sometimes with I holes, cut into it to engender a deep feeling of isolation and for a while. It worked true to the stereotypes that we have come to expect from prison movies. Over the years, eastern state penitentiary was no stranger to attempted break out. This became possible in part because of changes to the lay out and the flow of the prison itself. Doors were enlarged access to the internal hallways was opened up and overcrowding put more than one inmates in each cell. The first escape attempt was by inmate number ninety four wm hamilton He climbed out of a window in the wardens office but was caught a short time later in eighteen, twenty seven, william is she an inmate of fifteen years escaped with a friend? They managed to push a guard off one of the town and then scale down the side before making a run for freedom. Bitchy was actually pretty bold. He stayed on the run for seven years.

And eventually got a job and syracuse new york. What was that job? You might ask the he worked as a crossing guard for the police department. Like I said the man had got the most famous prison break, though, was willie sudden. He was probably the second most famous inmates in eastern state penitent. trees, entire history I'll get to number one in a bit, but willie he was a sort of criminal. Celebrity he'd been a bank robber before his time in eastern states. They called him the babe ruth of bank, robbing slick willie, the gentlemen bandits, but of course he got caught. Didn't he. Then the eastern states, in nineteen thirty four during his eleven year, stay there. He tried escaping five times, but it was his last attempt that was an affair to remember. Sutton,

Along with eleven other men dug a tunnel twelve feet down from cell sixty eight and then another one hundred feet straight out to breach the wall they remove the dirt from their excavations. Just like the shawshank redemption shown us hiding it in their pockets and then dropping it in the yard. The tunnels had ventilation and support beams. It was a production like none other it took them months, but on April third of nineteen, forty five, all twelve men slipped into the tunnel and crawled to freedom, some of the men actually evaded the authorities for a couple. Months. Slick welly, though, was caught within three minutes and there's a joke in there somewhere. I think over the century and a half in eastern state penitentiary was in operation more than one hundred prisoners managed to break out. One of the managed and never be recaptured, and I think we get It- people want to escape prison, it happens all over the world. Certainly, there are prisons with higher escape numbers, even here in the u s, but why the rush to leave

Eastern state, it turns out, was originally designed to house a maximum of three hundred criminals, but that was in the eighteen, thirties and society was changing in the beginning. Most of the inmates were horse thieves The nineteen twenties, though inmates were being sent in with darker crimes, things like violence and murder. As a result, Numbers swelled to an astounding two thousand. As nearly seven times. The original capacity with a shift in prisoner population came adjustments to the philosophy behind the pen. century itself gone were the notions of hard work, solitude and meditation in the minds of Those who ran the overcrowded prison only one corrective method would actually work torture.

Aside from the strait jacket, which was used often as a way of containing unruly prisoners. One of the more frightening methods of punishment was a seat called affectionately. The mad chair. It resembled an old dentist, chair and prisoners would be strapped into it. tightly as possible left four days without food. There were rumours that extended time spent in the chair resulted in amputations, so Inmates found themselves placed in the whole a small confining sell that been dug out of the foundation of the building, with only a tiny slot for food and air prisoners. the whole would share their space with rats and insects for weeks. At a time there was no bathroom there. No contact with other humans, no light to see by

then there was the room were inmates were taken during the winter, they would be stripped naked, plunged into a bath of cold water and then strapped to a wall to freeze throughout the night oftentimes. The guards would return to find a layer of ice on the skin, of the man being punished. None of those methods could hold a candle to what is known as the iron gag to reinforce the no talking policy on the prisoners. This punishment brought the consequences directly to the offenders mouth. It's hard to describe with words, but stick with me, and I ll do my best and inmates rick

it would be chained behind their back with crude manacles, and then a short chain would be connected to the wrists on either end of the chain would be a small iron clamp and that clamp was fastened to the tongue. Talking movement or struggling would all result in the tongue being torn, and it was said that extreme blood loss even lead to death in some cases, but as hard as it is to believe some prisoners managed to rise. Above all of that sum, in fact, men to enjoy a fairly luxurious life inside eastern states inside one of the seven cell blocks that radiated off the central hub was a string of cells known as park avenue the inmates there I enjoyed a bit more freedom and none took advance. Should that more than Al Capone, Today, capone is remembered as a mob boss of near mythic proportions, and eastern state was his first experience with prison life just months after his mouth

brutally murdered members of a rival gang in an event now referred to. As the Saint valentine's day, massacre capone was picked up in philadelphia and convicted for carrying a concealed weapon. For the eight months that spanned the summer of nineteen, twenty nine to the spring of nineteen thirty capone called park avenue his home. Here's. What August, nineteen, twenty nine article in philadelphia newspaper had to say the whole room was suffused in the glow of a desk lamp which stood on a polish. Desk on the once grim walls of the penal chamber, hung tasteful, paintings and strain a waltz were emitting from a powerful cabinet radio receiver of handsome design and find finnish, even with his better than average accommodations though capone still complain, but it wasn't about the food or the room temperature, no capone boy old and brazen. My boss, that he was appears to have been hunted by ghosts of his past literally

one night. Shortly after arriving at eastern states, capone was heard screaming from his cell. It wasn't anger or so beady that drove him to do it, though capone, was apparently scared. When asked he told the guards that he just wanted. Jim to leave him alone and go away. Jimmy was attacking him, it seems and he wanted him to stop at first. The guards and other inmates were confused. There was no one else in capone cell, no jimmy on the cell block, but then the dots were connected Jimmy. They guessed was really James clark, one of the men killed by capone's orders in the same valentine's day massacre, then, if that were true, then capone was screaming because he felt that Jimmy had followed him into the prison. Just the torment him eastern stay close down in nineteen seventy, but was reopen Ninety ninety one as a museum, even without the inmates, something dark seems to have remained behind and many who have stepped inside for a tour have come away with an experienced that's hard to find

the most common sightings occur in one of the guard towers that watches over the building and its perimeter, where a ghostly figure has been seen by many people. Others have reported the sounds of footsteps in the hallway laughter that echoes down through the cell blocks. Soft mournful whales had been heard there as well. in cell block. Twelve, a shadowy figure has been seen darting from cell to sell always noticed in the corner of the eye, some seen at rush away from a dark corner as a group of tourists pass by, while others have seen it moving up or down a war. like an enormous shadowy spider. A few years ago, a locksmith was called in to remove

the lock on one of the original doors in cell block four. After one hundred and forty years, it was understandably stubborn and this man was brought into help out. While there, though he experienced something that hans him to this day, the locksmith said that moments after he unlocked the sell. An unseen force rushed out impressed him against the wall of the hallway, for what felt like an eternity he was pinned there and could it move staring into the now open, sell his heart froze The walls inside he said were covered with faces. Doesn't

and dozens of faces, their expressions. Rising with agony and horror once free, the locksmith left, referring to the prison as a giant haunted house, and he never returned the law to be debated in the world of prison reform. How inmates deserve to be treated? What role imprisonment should play in the overall realm of consequences and due process we could

floor how motives and methods transform over time, under pressure and through human broken. This it's a can of worms, and I don't have all the answers, but there's an overwhelming feeling of guilt in all of this to the prison reform that eastern state represented at least originally was born out of a guilt for earlier, more barbaric methods and each in may in their own way was caught in a prison of their own personal guilt. It's easy to see how anyone trapped inside might feel remorse and want desperately to escape. Maybe eastern state penitentiary really is haunted. Maybe there are real ghosts that drift through the dark halls and shadows that move at the corner our vision. Considering all of the horrific things that have taken place there over the years, it seems only natural for there to be some sort of an echo still present or maybe

It's nothing more than madness. Some think it's crazy to believe that there are spirits, roaming, the halls of a prison or any building for that matter. It defies logic, its unproven, jimmy, never really hunted AL capone. They say the man was haunted by guilt and nothing more. It's interesting to note that, even after his release from eastern states, capone still complained of Jimmy's presence back in chicago and living at the lexington hotel. He still screened for Jimmy to leave him On the screams would always bring his bodyguards running and they would always find the man alone, even though everyone else thought that he was losing his mind that his guilt was the only real ghost haunting him night and day. Capone looked for help elsewhere. He hired a psychic named Alice brit to conduct a seance for him and she begged Jimmy on capone's behalf to leave the my boss alone and that they hoped

was the end of it. One day, a few weeks after that science capone's personal attendant, a man named Jaime Cornish, stepped into capone's quarters to retrieve something when he entered the room. He immediately noticed. stranger standing near the window facing out to look down on the street? He glanced around the room for other visitors. No one was supposed to be in MR capone's room after all, and the intruder would need to be dealt with. Turning back to the man, Cornish called out for his attention and then stopped the man whoever he had been had disappeared.

As I mentioned earlier, cultures throughout history have demonstrated a lot of skill and building prisons that no one wanted to go inside and as a result that human craving for independence has led many prisoners to try breaking free which is why it is so easy to track down one last tale of escaping inmates. This one is a duty to, and if you stick around through this brief sponsor break I'll, tell you all about it, this episode of war was made possible by square space backing two thousand nineteen. I had an idea that was making more podcast, just more and had begun to hire people lease office space and even build a studio. So I decided to bundle it altogether under one big production, company label, grim and mild entertainment, but to make an official the company needed a digital home, a place to live all of our amazing researchers and writers, and we're folks like you could find

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lore for a special offer that includes a four week: trial, plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term commitments or contracts just go to stamps dot. Com click, the microphone at the top of the page and enter the code lore that stamps dot com offer code, lore, ooh successful prison breaks, a rare and even the people who do make it out or found rather quickly. Of course, some escapes go down in history because of how badly they failed, but one in particular was so hare brained. It actually worked. It was concocted by and with a bit of a reputation around town, he was a womanizer who Joyed rolling around! In the beds of married women, nuns even his own family members, he was also a party boy, a gambler, a musician and a playwright. Some might have called him. A renaissance me

but everyone knew him because of his name: giacomo casanova. Yes, that's casanova! worse because of his uncouth and immoral lifestyle. The church had its eye on him. In fact, officials had a room picked out just for him in paeon be prison. A set of seven cells on the top floor of the duchess palace in venice pombe, translates to the leds meant for the lead slabs covering the prisons roof, but pamby that meant for everyone to find yourself in such a place meant that you had gotten on someone else's bedside prisoners first had to be accused using special boxes called bouquet D only or the lions mouths they were ornate. Letter boxes made to look like the faces of lions. Are humans and embedded in government buildings, all over the city, citizens were encouraged

right out any legal grievances that they held against their neighbours and slipped the complaints into the boxes. Gaping ma. In some cases, all it took was one accusation to land them in Pombe. The complaints and taken to the council of ten of a nation governing body that decided whether or not to act on them. Those who were found guilty were often members of a community with higher social standing as well as de frocks priests, but even prison was inside the palace on the top floor, no less that didn't mean that people lived inside the lap of luxury but lead slabs. The roof, let in the cold in the winter and collected heat in the summer, making the flea infested cells unbearable in extreme weather, the sea, Things were also so low. Some of the prisoners couldn't stand upright in seventeen. Fifty six giacomo casanova got a close look at the still is when he found himself in the jaws of the lions mouth, then the frigid embrace of pr these walls.

He was viewed as an affront to the church and had to be stopped, and so he was thrown in jail without so much as an explanation. Why? But such a forceful man as he could not be confined for long one day. I seen over was allowed into the garret next to his cell, while his was being cleaned, stumbled upon an iron rhine, possibly adore bolt and assured of marble. He snuck both objects back into his cell use the marble to sharpen the point of the rod which he used to bore a hole in the floor and fortune it. His attempted escape was foiled when the guards came and moved him to a larger, nicer cell elsewhere and, of course, the giant hole his old cell was discovered in the process. So Casanova was searched daily for the tool that he had used to make it the guards never found it, though he had hit it. The seat of his chair in his new cell, but because he was always being watched. He couldn't dig anymore sometime later. casting over befriended marine oblebee, a fallen fry

living in the cell above his Bobby and imprisoned for father in three children, with three different young women and baptizing them all as his own. He and casanova, we're both educated man, who happened to have small libraries in their cells, the guards allowed them to exchange books every now and then, which gave cason over the opportunity to recruit the accomplice. For his now escape. He started, including short notes in the backs of the books that he lent to Bobby. In order for the plan to work, though, Bobby had to bore two holes in his own sell one in the floor for cason over the climb through and another in the wall that would lead the men to freedom, casanova, smuggled, the pike to bobby by hiding it inside a bible. The blade was too long poking out through the edge of the book, so he covered it with a plate of buttered macaroni. He told the guards that it was a gift of thanks for the books about

had lent. Him casanova believe that the guards would be too busy. Try not to spill the butter to check the bible for contraband, and he was right. He then instructed Bobby to cover his walls with posters of the saints and begin boring through behind them so in days before they were about to escape casanova, was hit with another curveball. A new cellmate name sword dodgy and saw that she was both a christian and assume to keep him on his side. However, Casanova made up a grand story about a prophetic dream he had had in italy Virgin Mary had told him that one of her angels would take the form of a man who would come down from Heaven. It said to break open the roof of your prison and set you free within five or six days in right on schedule. Bobby came bursting through the ceiling fully sword that she and giving casanova the means to get out in mind terms they shawshank their way across the steep slippery, led tiles and should be down to

window, using ropes, made a bedsheets once inside the tower level of the palace. They changed out of their prison attire and into some fancier threads to the guards. They looked like visiting politicians who had accidentally been locked within the palace, and so they were set free. They fled via gondola, after which Casanova escaped to paris, where he went right back to his old ways. Thirty years after his daring escape, giacomo casanova wrote a memoir all about how he done it. And it's probably safe to assume that he was even more popular with the ladys, because of it. This episode of law was right

dirged, written and produced by me, Erin monkey with additional research, help from Gennaros never caught and writing. Assistance from harry marks and music by Chad. Lawson lore is much more than just a podcast there's a books here, available in bookstores and online and two seasons of the television show on amazon. Prime video check involve out. If you want more law in, If you can find more information about all of those things and more over at more podcast dotcom and for fans of the visual form war is also on youtube. Each new episode is

he's too long side the pod cast, but in talking head video formats, be sure to subscribe. So the ito miss future videos and you can also follow the show on twitter, facebook and instagram to search for lower podcast are one word and then click that follow button and when you do say hi, I like it when people say hi and as always, thanks for listening.