So, everytime a crook in Gotham is caught, they get sent to Blackgate or Arkham Asylum. Surprisingly (NOT), Arkham has suffered from more break-outs, take-overs, or violent incidents then any facility on the East Coast.
It could be a multitude of reasons:
#1. Arkham hires lazy security
#2. Walls are too thin, so its easier for criminal to hear security patterns to perfectly time an escape
#3. Dirty cops on the inside
#4. The writers need to let s*** happen to lead to even more s**t happening later in the story.
jason got tortured inside arkham thats how u know it sucks
In their defense, Arkham has its hands full keeping the Eldritch Horrors like Cthulu at bay
I think it’s a combination of rampant corruption in Gotham City and the city failing to adequately finance the institution. Of course, it can’t be easy being home to the world’s worst supervillains…
The sickness inside Arkham Asylum and Gotham City itself, is rooted in human nature. That’s why Batman mentions how criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot, and it’s the reason why he dresses like a demonic Bat to scare them off. This superstition thing applies to most humans as well. It’s the fear of the unknown which drives people act in irrational manners.
All systems whether they be political or religious, are really a reflection of the people that are being governed by them. In other words, we’re the worm at the core.
Because the comics would be pretty boring if it was a well made and maintained facility.
It suck, cause it never 100% help the villains to get any better, no matter how hard they try. The blame could very well goes to Batman, cause he’s not really helping one bit. 
The writers are on the bad guys side the poor workers at Arkham have no chance.
Grant Morrison’s Arkham Asylum gets into this at its plainest, but further works based centrally on Arkham reiterate the point – Arkham is not meant to be a healthcare facility. After losing his family to an inmate, Amadeus Arkham designed it with the clandestine purpose of torturing the criminally insane, to make them feel as trapped and helpless as himself. To the public, it’s marketed as a place of redemption, but the Arkham family which has run it since the 19th century knows its true sadistic purpose.
It all starts in the home. Our modern systems that we have just get structured around the kinds of people that are produced by these homes. Hence, it all goes back to human nature.
As a counterpoint, there’s a great alternate perspective in Priest’s Deathstroke where we learn that it’s really only the same 20 or so problem patients we see breaking out and causing chaos all the time. For every one of them, there are hundreds of people that Arkham helps.
Kinda like that recording you can hear in the medical building in the Arkham Asylum game, where it talks a bit about Arkham’s non-criminal patients.
With exceptions. He’s the one who offered both Harley and Ivy the chances to redeem themselves, and it hasn’t bit him on the ass… too badly.
Such a great question… I imagine the criminals have inside assistance for whenever they actually just want to get out. A lot of Batman’s biggest villains have tons of followers, so that kinda would make sense
Like how Joker has Officer Boles working for him in Batman: Arkham Asylum.
