Joseph Bowers Joseph Bowers Joseph "Dutch" Bowers (December 13, 1896 – April 27, 1936) was the first man to attempt an escape from Alcatraz prison. On 27 April 1936, convict Henry Larry claims to have watched Bowers, who was feeding seagulls, stack some empty barrels and climb up next to the fence so he could retrieve a bit of food which had fallen on the barbed wire. He stood there feeding the birds for several minutes until a tower guard turned, saw him atop the fence, and fired on the convict. Bowers fell seventy feet to his death on the rocks below.
No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons similar testimony from inmates in Arkansas, Illinois, Michigan, and California. "No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons" blamed indifference and feigned ignorance by prison officials for the widespread existence of male inmate on inmate sexual violence in American prisons. When HRW queried Nebraska for information while compiling "No Escape" they were told that incidents were "minimal"; New Mexico told HRW no reported incidents had occurred in the past few years. Numerous other states had similar responses that characterized such incidents as rare or not a problem; among those states the Department of Corrections in Alaska, Connecticut and Kentucky all noted