In August, 2002, Brazilian Judge Sueli Zeraick Armani de Menezes visited Taubate Prison, a maximum security facility in Sao Paulo state for a routine inspection. Everything went swimmingly until Menezes arrived at a guard tower, where he was astonished to find that the inmates were being supervised by a scarecrow dressed as a prison guard.

[Prison security chief Lamarque Monteiro acknowledged that the incident was "really serious."]

[In August 2003, a mass escape from a prison in Rosario, Argentina was foiled when a 225-pound prisoner got stuck in the 12" hole which inmates had dug in the ceiling. Prison guards were called to help free the man: "It was the funniest thing I've ever seen," a prison spokesperson recalled. "This fat man was stuck from the waist down and shaking his legs... with all the other prisoners looking really pissed off because he stopped them from escaping."]