in Law; a violent or privy evasion out of some lawful restraint, without being delivered by due course of law. There are two sorts of escapes, voluntary and negligent. Voluntary, when a man arrests another for felony or other crime, and afterwards lets him go freely by consent; in which case, the party that permits such escape is held guilty, committed, and must answer for it. Negligent escape, on the contrary, is where one is arrested, and afterwards escapes against the will of the person that arrested him, and is not pursued with fresh suit, and retaken before the person pursuing hath lost sight in him. By stat. 8 and 9 Will. III. c. 26, the keepers of prisons conniving at escapes shall forfeit 500l.; and in civil cases the sheriff is answerable for the debt.