The December escape of seven Texas inmates was a rare occurrence and a similar prison break is not likely to happen in Iowa, experts said.Seven inmates convicted of violent crimes, including rape and murder, escaped from a maximum-security prison in Kenedy, Texas, Dec. 13. The inmates overpowered guards at the prison and took 16 weapons and more than 200 rounds of ammunition, according to the Associated Press.On Christmas Eve, the inmates reportedly robbed a sporting goods store. A police officer was shot and killed during the robbery. The seven inmates remain at large.Fred Scaletta, public information officer for the Iowa Department of Corrections, said prison escapes are rare.”It’s not very easy for convicts to escape from custody,” he said. “I can’t remember the last time we had an escape from a high-security prison.”More common are escapes from prisons where inmates are less heavily supervised, Scaletta said. Those escaped prisoners are not “high risk” for committing violent acts such as those in maximum-security prisons, he said. “Occasionally we do have walk-aways from low-security prisons,” he said. “We implement our emergency plans in those occasions. We notify staff, and we notify law enforcement officers, especially in the area, and do whatever we have to do to get them back.”Scaletta said there are procedures prison staff go through to catch the escaped inmates as quickly as possible.”You try to look at where their contacts have been: who they were writing, who they may have called. Of course you talk to inmates and see if they’ve said anything,” he said. “Certainly the first thing we do is get out there and start looking.” Paul Fitzgerald, Story County sheriff, said there is always a possibility any inmate could escape.

“Whenever you’re holding prisoners, the possibility is always there,” he said.However, he said it would be highly unlikely there would be an escape from the Story County Jail.”I’ve been sheriff since January of ’93, we’ve never had a jail escape,” he said. “In Story County, I would say there’s little to no chance [of an escape happening in the future]. Deputies are trained, they’re equipped, and they’re ready to do their jobs.”A report by the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, to be released today, cited a guard’s failure to follow procedures as the cause of the escape.Fitzgerald said the Story County Jail is very overcrowded and that overcrowding can contribute to errors in guarding prisoners.”If you have overcrowding, everything is pushed to its max,” he said. “Stresses are high, tempers are high, and the employees have to be on their toes at all times.”Story County is building a new justice center that would increase the number of beds in the jail from 46 to 96, Fitzgerald said. On Wednesday, 64 inmates were in the Story County Jail, and nine more were expected to come in on the weekend, he said. Some of the prisoners that exceed the jail’s number of beds are sent out of the county for imprisonment, while “the other ones are sleeping on mattresses on the floor,” he said.Fitzgerald said he hopes the Texas inmates are returned to prison soon. “I hope they catch those individuals in Texas in a very timely fashion,” he said. “These individuals are very dangerous individuals, and they need to be locked up as soon as possible.”