Evading a punishment is pretty universally seen as a crime, not sure why you'd think otherwise.

I can think of at least one nation that disagrees: Germany.

To quote Wikipedia "In some other places like Germany and a number of other countries, it is considered human nature to want to escape from a prison and it is considered as a violation of the right of freedom, so escape is not penalized in itself (in the absence of other factors such as threats of violence, actual violence, or property damage)."

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_escape

Because it's a natural instinct to seek freedom. It's in human nature. Like, expecting a prisoner to keep sitting in their cell when suddenly all doors spring open is ridiculous.

Sure it’s a natural instinct, but society as a whole views it as ethically, morally, and legally “wrong”. We don’t allow individual’s selfish motives to rule society in other areas.

Either way, the person I was responding to did not say it was a natural desire, they only said it was “not wrong”.

I guess there are different levels on which you can look at this. If a rapist escapes from prison I certainly don't celebrate that. I want him to get captured again as quickly as possible. But I do not think it should add anything to his sentence, at least not for the attempt itself. If he hurt anyone, broke/stole something on his way out that's a different issue.

Not in Germany, apparently.

Not in most countries.