AT THE VERY LEAST people living near New York State’s now infamous prison break could be getting fresh air in defiance of their governor’s ludicrous warnings to hide from the dangerous felons. Neighbors can exercise their property rights to spectate as they please and take strolls where they can to muck it up for the K9s hounding fugitives David Sweat and Richard Matt. Fellow freedom-loving itinerants could also converge upstate to force multiply the sightings of vagabond pairs crisscrossing the woods around the Clinton Correctional Facility, known in the industry as “Little Siberia”. But most certainly, lawyers of any conscience should assail the Clinton County DA’s office in defense of poor Joyce Mitchell, the prison sweatshop supervisor who may have helped the escapees, whom authorities were waiting to charge until after she’d cooperated with interrogators. Lawyers should be livid that neither authorities nor reporters bat an eyelash at Ms. Mitchell’s lack of proper counsel. Media coverage while constant is marred by omission.

Are fugitives Matt and Sweat dangerous? The media doesn’t want to detail their criminal histories other than to repeat they are murderers. David Sweat and an accomplice plead guilty to first degree murder of a sheriff’s deputy when Sweat was 22. (Who pleads guilty to first degree murder?) The deputy had interrupted a burglary, other accomplices were not charged. When Sweat was 17 he served time for attempted burglary.

While in his twenties Richard Matt killed his boss. Why and what was their line of work? The media won’t say. Matt’s previous record was as a juvenile.

Both appear to be examples of the failure of the correctional industry in handling juveniles. This prison break was the only hope either men had for escaping its clutches. The escape was nonviolent and fears that either men mean harm to others are not grounded in anything but hyperbole about how “evil” they are.