The indefinite one-day to life sentence dissolved any link in the prisoner's mind between good behavior and early release, which now depended on a psychiatric judgment over which he had little influence. Some resorted to escape attempts.

In 1926, five inmates cut through steel bars on the second floor of the new hospital (parts of which were already appropriated for dormitory use), pried open the east gate, and made their way to freedom. Tools used in construction work were stored overnight in the hospital cellar, and the inmates had secreted a pipe cutter and used it to cut through the 7/8 inch steel bars, then used it as a lever to pry open the wooden gate. The next night, employees of the nearby private Foord's Sanatorium, armed with an axe, captured four of the escapees. When Dr. Thayer arrived on the scene, he gave orders to search a nearby clump of woods, and the fifth man came out and surrendered.

Just seven months later, four more prisoners escaped, three of them murderers, and contemporary newspaper accounts showed both alarm and curiosity as to how allegedly "defective" inmates could have outwitted authorities. . . . Under the headline of "Highly resourceful defectives," the New York Times told how the escapees had let the electric mixing machine run, using its clatter as a cover for their activities. The Times considered this a "display of initiative, foresight and skill not in perfect consonance with their official mental age of 10 years." "Tighten up," the New York Graphic admonished, judging that the inmates' "ingenious getaway" was aided by "indifferent watchfulness" on the part of the keepers.