Inmates often struggle to return to captivity after being given a pass out of jail. as Lukas Markov explained to me for this article I penned in 2005, one of my all time favourites.
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To the men who disembark from the 69 bus every Friday carrying brown paper bags, the bar at the Henri Bourassa metro offers the first delicious taste of freedom.
“The waitresses see us and know right away where we’re from. We’re from Bordeaux prison. And that brasserie is the place to start as soon as we get out.”
For Lukas Markov, 54, the sudsy taste of freedom was too tempting to resist.
Between 1994 and 2000 the son-of-a-bank robber from Park Ex spent about four years inside the provincial prison for minor thefts he committed to fuel a drug habit.
"I’d sleep outside, I had a big beard, like Bin Laden. It was very scary, you’re scared every time you see a police car, so that’s why I was hiding on the streets,” he says.
Markov wouldn’t even chance homeless shelters, in case authorities came to check. “I believe there are a few out there who went homeless because they’re wanted by the authorities.”
One practice contributed to Markov's stubborn refusal to return: the ritual where prison guards smell for alcohol on prisoners returning after a weekend free.
“I’d go and get drunk and then get scared to go back because they’d put me in the hole. In the hole and you have nothing, just a little blanket, you can’t even smoke. They put you in the hole to see if you shit the dope out.”
One time Markov interviewed people on the street asking whether they thought he should go back inside.
“Just
as the French Revolution stated that citizens have the right to
revolt against an oppressive government, we made the parallel that –
as prison is an abnormal inhuman place, then it’s normal that
people would want to leave,” says ProfessorJean-Claude Bernheim of the Prisoners Rights Committee.
“So escaping is not antisocial or abnormal. When you consider that the human being is somebody who lives in society who is devoted to liberty, it’s normal that once locked up one wants to escape,
Little publicity is given to their disappearance and no special task for or public initiative tries to get them back into custody.
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| Lukas Markov |
“The waitresses see us and know right away where we’re from. We’re from Bordeaux prison. And that brasserie is the place to start as soon as we get out.”
For Lukas Markov, 54, the sudsy taste of freedom was too tempting to resist.
Between 1994 and 2000 the son-of-a-bank robber from Park Ex spent about four years inside the provincial prison for minor thefts he committed to fuel a drug habit.
Like other prisoners who had served one sixth of their sentence, Markov
would earn weekend passes known as
“codes.”
But Sunday evening rolled around Markov couldn’t bring
himself to get back on the bus to jail.
On five occasions Markov
simply didn’t return.
One time he was rounded up after getting caught trying to shoplift at a video store. Another time he resisted temptation and went back
on his own free will, but the rest of the time he simply slipped back
in the crowd.
Markov
understands the urge to escape what he describes as the “scary”
world of prison life.
“I’ve seen guys get beaten up so bad, crushed like Pepsi cans, it was really violent. They’re at war in there and there’s lots of racial pressures, I’ve seen guys walk into my cell ‘hey man you have nice fucken clothes, we want them’ and I’d be like: ‘fuck you man.’ Or they’d say ‘we heard you have hash’ so I’d reply: ‘I’d sooner flush it down the toilet than let you take it!’ You can’t give in, otherwise they’ll stomp all over you.”
Rather than return
to jail after a weekend in freedom, Markov went homeless, cultivating the look of a madman in order to get more money as a
beggar.“I’ve seen guys get beaten up so bad, crushed like Pepsi cans, it was really violent. They’re at war in there and there’s lots of racial pressures, I’ve seen guys walk into my cell ‘hey man you have nice fucken clothes, we want them’ and I’d be like: ‘fuck you man.’ Or they’d say ‘we heard you have hash’ so I’d reply: ‘I’d sooner flush it down the toilet than let you take it!’ You can’t give in, otherwise they’ll stomp all over you.”
"I’d sleep outside, I had a big beard, like Bin Laden. It was very scary, you’re scared every time you see a police car, so that’s why I was hiding on the streets,” he says.
Markov wouldn’t even chance homeless shelters, in case authorities came to check. “I believe there are a few out there who went homeless because they’re wanted by the authorities.”
One practice contributed to Markov's stubborn refusal to return: the ritual where prison guards smell for alcohol on prisoners returning after a weekend free.
“I’d go and get drunk and then get scared to go back because they’d put me in the hole. In the hole and you have nothing, just a little blanket, you can’t even smoke. They put you in the hole to see if you shit the dope out.”
One time Markov interviewed people on the street asking whether they thought he should go back inside.
“I was at the Mount Royal Metro and I asked people to give me one good reason to go back in jail. I even asked two cops. I asked all the way up to the doors of the jail. The cops were moralizing, very cliché but the rest told me to do my time and get on with my life.”
Markov has since made the ultimate escape, the escape from his demons. He is cohabitating with a prison counselor, working cleaning up the homes that in the past he’d be temped to burgle. ”I’d run because I couldn't stand going back to jail, it’s very scary. I put a mask on in jail. When I got out I had a mask on. Now with my mind and the people who love me, I let the love in.”
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Fiction, ranging from the Dirty Dozen to the Count of Monte Christo has long glorified prison escape,
In real life the practice is seen dimly.
For 20 years one of Quebec’s most esteemed prison rights advocates has long argued that prisoners should have a “right of escape.”
Fiction, ranging from the Dirty Dozen to the Count of Monte Christo has long glorified prison escape,
In real life the practice is seen dimly.
For 20 years one of Quebec’s most esteemed prison rights advocates has long argued that prisoners should have a “right of escape.”
“Just
as the French Revolution stated that citizens have the right to
revolt against an oppressive government, we made the parallel that –
as prison is an abnormal inhuman place, then it’s normal that
people would want to leave,” says ProfessorJean-Claude Bernheim of the Prisoners Rights Committee.“So escaping is not antisocial or abnormal. When you consider that the human being is somebody who lives in society who is devoted to liberty, it’s normal that once locked up one wants to escape,
When
caught, escapees frequently get prison time added to their sentences
and have subsequent parole delayed or denied, but Bernheim disputes
this practice. “We must not reprimand a normal behaviour, it’s
normal and human to want to escape. I think all prisoners dream about escaping everyone is seeking an exit door.”
Bernheim
argues that families should also be allowed to welcome escaped family
members into their homes without consequence. “They’re considered
scary but these people are usually quite boring, their objective of
an escapee is not to get caught, they’ll try to get a job, they’re
people who try to avoid danger.”
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>In 2004 75 of the roughly 4,000 inmates in 18 provincial-run prisons escaped custody. Most are quickly found or return of their own will, but officials admit that they have no idea what happened to the rest, “they might be dead, they might be out of the country, we don’t know,” says warden of Montee St-Francois. Three prisoners from provincial prisons remain at large since last year. Inmates in provincial institutions are roughly evenly divided between those serving sentences of under two years and those who are awaiting trials or sentencing, for every variety of crime.---
Little publicity is given to their disappearance and no special task for or public initiative tries to get them back into custody.
A Corrections Canada official listed eight inmates who have disappeared without being returned to prison: Duzgon Atsiz, Pierre Charette, Martin Pellerin, Milos Ales, Pierre Campeau, Jeffrey Colegrove, Carl Bergeron and Steven Solyom all at one time sentenced to prison for serious offences, including weapons and drugs charges have, over the last few years, escaped and have their whereabouts unknown.
Unlike places like the USA where citizens, through such programs at America’s Most Wanted, are encouraged to look out for and report escapees, Quebec’s law enforcement believes it can better apprehend escapees through stealth.
Some escapees have found it exceedingly easy to walk away from prison and return to society. Last year a bankrobber convicted of shooting at police failed to return to St-Anne-des-Plaines prison from his duties at a handicapped Center in St-Jerome. Renaud Brochu, 58, rented an apartment and did odd jobs, such as housepainter, which he advertised in the Quebec City newspaper with his real name. Prior to turning himself in last August after three uneventful years in freedom, he reported that he ‘d even approach police in the street to chat without ever being suspected of being a fugitive rom a serious jail sentence.
A decade ago the issue of escaped convicts was taken much more seriously when a spate of escapees committeed a string of serious crimes: Patrick Legault shot and killed a 46 year old stranger in St. Bruno after fleeing Bordeaux, during the same era, Claude Forget, a fugitive from a Drummondville prison shot two cops on Peel, both of whom survived with serious injury in 1993, and Daniel Lamer, while being sought for parole violations, robbed a Jean Coutu and took two cops hostage, shooting and wounded a police officer in 1991.
Jean-Claude Bernheim looks like an Ewok.
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