Yoshie Shiratori: Japanese Houdini That No Prison Could Hold

In Japan, during the Meiji Era, which spanned from 1868 to 1912, it was once of the crueler periods for those in prisons, so escaping from prisons was more common.

A record number of convicts made their escape from prison in 1881 due to the harsh living conditions.

Japan has worked on reforming the prison system since the Meiji Era, this means that escapes were growing rarer, and by the 1970s, the annual number of escapes have shrank to just a single digit.

Lockpicker

There is no other man in history that has shown as much disdain for incarceration than Yoshie Shiratori, he was labeled as "the man that no prison could hold." Yoshie was originally accused of murder and robbery and was sentenced to Aomori Prison. Three years after he was sentenced, he picked the lock on his handcuffs with a short wire he found from a bathing bucket.

Police ended up recapturing Yoshie three days after he escaped and he was sentenced to life in prison for escaping and for stealing supplies from a hospital. He was transferred to Akita prison in 1942.

At this prison, he escaped from climbing the smooth walls of his cell to reach the air vent. He would climb up and down the wall every night and eventually he was able to unhinge the vent and extricate himself.

After this escape, maybe from exhaustion from all the running and hiding, he decided to go to a home of a police officer, the only one that showed him any benevolence towards him from Aomori prison. This officer eventually turned Yoshie into the authorities and he vowed to never trust another police officer.

Miso Soup Act

Yoshie was now transferred for the second time, this time to Abashiri Prison that was located in a remote locale in Northern Hokkaido. Abashiri was no regular penal colony, it was for the worst kinds of criminals in Japan.

Yoshie was sent here simply because he escaped two times and police wanted to keep him put. But, Yoshie managed to escape Abashiri as well, in nothing but his underwear.

Each morning, Yoshie would spit Miso soup into the doorframe of his cell every morning, the salts and moisture from this eventually corroded and weakened the door frame.

When the wartime blackout of August 26th, 1944 occurred, Yoshie managed to dislocate his shoulders and squeeze himself out of his cell through a small space on the metal frame where guards would slide him his food. Yoshie's escape was publicized and made the headlines of several newspapers in the Hokkaido Shimbun.

The Final Push for Freedom

Yoshie again was tried for his escape, and he was now sentenced to death by the Sapporo District Court. Yoshie was assigned six armed guards and was under 24 hour surveillance.

At Sapporo prison, he was put in a specially made cell that was designed to prevent him from escaping once again through the air vent in the ceiling. This would end up being the largest defect in the design because too much attention was brought to the ceiling and the floor of the cell was more or less ignored.

The guards at the prison had a lot of faith in the newly renovated cell that they stopped handcuffing Yoshie. This would prove to be mistake number two.

Yoshie was fatigued from being a prisoner and from his constant escapes, but one thing still fueled his drive: desperation. While he was waiting for his execution in 1947, Yoshie made a final bid for freedom by managing to unlock the bolts that held the cell's wooden floorboards together. He then used a bowl used for food to dig his way out of the prison.

After a year, it's said that Yoshie was offered a cigarette by a police officer. He was moved by the kindness of the officer, since cigarettes were expensive after the war, Yoshie admitted that he was an escaped convict and he offered to be turned in by the officer. He once again appeared before the High Court of Sapporo. They did take in account that during his four escapes he did not harm any guards, despite the fact that abuse to guards was rampant in all the prisons.

The High Court of Sapporo decided to revoke the death penalty and instead gave him a final 20 year sentence to prison. Yoshi then requested that he be sent to a prison in Toyko, which was granted by the court. He was in Fuchu Prison until 1961 when he was given parole. He then traveled to the Aomori Prefecture more than a decade later so he could reunite with his daughter and tell her his life story. Yoshie went on to live for another decade after that and he did odd jobs to survive. He eventually died due to heart attack in 1979. A woman that previously cared for him in the neighborhood also took care of his ashes after he died. His remains are said to be buried in a grave that overlooks Mount Fuji.