Some believe we should follow the examples of countries like Germany and Mexico that do not punish inmates who engage in nonviolent “walkaway” prison escapes. But compelling public policy considerations, including ensuring public safety, conserving taxpayer funds, and safeguarding the rule of law, must outweigh a prisoner’s desire to be free. 

On the last day of August 2023, prison surveillance cameras captured 34-year-old convicted killer Danelo Cavalcante escaping his Pennsylvania maximum security prison by crab-walking up two walls separated by a five-foot hallway. Cavalcante was serving a life sentence for his vicious April 2021 stabbing murder of ex-girlfriend Deborah Brandão, an attack that took place in front of her two small children. He additionally is wanted in his native Brazil for felling a friend in a hail of bullets. (His 2018 decision to illegally enter the United States allowed him to avoid facing those murder charges.)

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