By the standards of basic humanity and decency, John Massey should have been released years ago. That until Wednesday evening he was languishing in Pentonville prison nearly forty years after being convicted of murder says much about the rotten and bureaucratic state of our current prison system.

The outlines of his story are well known, in part thanks to the work of The Guardian's Eric Allison. Sentenced in 1976 to life imprisonment for the murder of a club bouncer after a drunken row, he was released in 2007. His sister offered him a home with her in north London.

Re-establishing family relationships after a spell in prison is recognised as important in promoting reintegration and resettlement. More importantly, after so many years in custody and with his father dying in hospital, it would have been a kindness that cost nothing to agree this arrangement.

The probation service had other ideas. It forced him to live under strict conditions in a bail hostel in south London. After being told of his father's imminent death he did what any child would want to do, spending time at his bedside. His requests for a relaxation of the strict rules governing his life outside were turned down. He stayed with his father until he died, in the process breaching his release conditions.

Returned to prison, he came up again for release two and a half years later and was moved to an open jail. In May 2010 his request to visit his gravely ill sister was turned down. So he walked out of the open prison and stayed with his sister until she died.

He then went to live with and look after his mother in Camden until the police eventually caught up with him ten months later. He was again returned to prison, where he was held until his escape yesterday.

It is worth recounting Massey's story because it highlights the cruel inflexibility of a prison system that excels at most things apart from what really matters: treating serving prisoners with decency, humanity and respect.

It also points to the institutional hypocrisy of a system that promotes the importance of family relationships for serving prisoners while doing far too little to support them in practice. In the case of Massey it bordered on active sabotage.

That he might have been a grieving son and brother in need of support and understanding did not seem to figure in the decisions made by others about his life. If Massey is dangerous – something I very much doubt – it is the prison system that has made him so.

Now on the run and branded a dangerous criminal he will presumably be tracked down in time and returned to prison for a further, potentially lengthy, stay.

What should happen? My hope is that he will be released after a token period in custody and left to live out his remaining days in quiet obscurity, surrounded by those who matter most to him.

The argument is often made that prisons should not be clogged up with people, like Massey, who have served their sentence and pose little or no threat to anyone. There is much truth in this.

What this argument misses is what Massey's story demonstrates so clearly: that prisoners are people with the same emotions, feelings and human needs as everyone else.

These admirable and essential human qualities should be nurtured and cherished, not bureaucratically crushed.