A group of US prison escapees have been safely recaptured after using peanut butter to pull off an incredible jailbreak.

Walker County Jail in Alabama was in chaos on Sunday night after 12 inmates managed to trick a security guard into opening an outside door using the breakfast condiment.

"It may sound crazy, but these people are crazy like a fox," Walker County Sheriff Jim Underwood told a news conference on Monday, CNN reports.

Underwood said inmates at the facility took advantage of a new guard stationed in the control room by using peanut butter to change the numbers on a door leading to the outside, making it look like an inmate's cell.

Most of the escapees were rounded up within eight hours. (Facebook)

"The young man, he was a weak link and they knew it. That's it in a nutshell," he said.

"They changed the number over the door with peanut butter. They hollered, 'Hey, open door' so-and-so, but (the number the inmates gave him) was the outside door. And unknowingly to him, he hit that lock and out the door they went.

"We got some evil people down here."

The last of the escapees, Brady Andrew Kilpatric, managed to elude police but was finally arrested yesterday. (Facebook)

It took officers eight hours to round up 11 of the inmates who stuck together after the jailbreak, making it easier for authorities to find them.

Two of the escapees had been jailed for attempted murder.

One of the men needed to have his thumb reattached after slicing it while scaling the prison's barbed wire fence.

The final prisoner, Brady Andrew Kilpatric, was located yesterday.