It’s 2020. Cheap, long lasting cameras are ubiquitous and easily available. A 40 year old CCTV camera in a subway station might be likely to not work, but I don’t see why that’s comparable to a camera for one of the highest profile prisoners in recent years. For $100, they could have even had 2 cameras for redundancy and no excuse.
Prisons are not much of a target for tech upgrades. Here’s a 2018 study from california on “what happens if we put surveillance cameras in the prison?” to give you an idea of the baseline. https://ucicorrections.seweb.uci.edu/files/2018/05/High-Dese...
Then someone needs to be held responsible for this. Somebody is in charge of all of that and should face the consequences of their failure to fulfill their duties.
Sure, it's a conspiracy of taxpayers to avoid the massive investment that would be required to bring all that technology back into working order - across public infrastructure everywhere throughout the country.
What percentage of BART cameras do you think work? Based on the number of high-profile incidents without footage, I'd guess <25%. I would not be surprised to learn the answer is 0%.
Consider yourself held responsible and allocate yourself the consequences you see fit.