Prisons today come in all shapes and sizes, and their interiors frequently reflect the prisoners they imprison. In both domestic and foreign minimum security jails, there could be excellent beds, access to private restrooms, and recreational and rehabilitative programs. The rich and famous in the United States may even have the option to serve their sentences in facilities updated with flat-screen TVs and other creature comforts for a contentious pay-to-play opportunity to ensure minimal hardship as they complete their obligations to society.
On the other hand, some jails have inhumanely high rates of overcrowding, offer subpar medical care, and expose convicts to a high danger of violence. Ten of those are highlighted in this list, in no particular order.
- Mendoza Prison, Argentina
There are roughly three times as many inmates as there are spaces available at Mendoza Prison in Argentina. Convicts are kept in cramped cells that are only 43 square feet (4 square meters) in size and can accommodate up to five inmates, where they are required to sleep on the floor without mattresses.
In a study on the subject published in 2005, Amnesty International issued a warning that “people imprisoned in Mendoza are in such a desperate situation that they have gone as far as to sew their mouths up in demand of better living conditions.” The circumstances at the time were so terrible that prisoners occasionally suffered torture or even died. Since they got poor medical care and the prison lacked a functional sewage system, inmates were compelled to use plastic bags and bottles as bathrooms.
- Gldani Prison, Georgia
Following a crisis at Georgia’s Gldani Prison in Tbilisi, Georgia’s practice of torturing inmates by guards came to international prominence in 2012. A 35-year-old whistleblower who was a prison guard before has evidence of several infractions, including rape and brutality. The records sparked widespread protests around the country, and as a result, there have been real changes in the way that prisoners are treated.
Despite improvements in jail conditions during the past ten years, Mikheil Saakashvili’s detention has brought Gldani jail back into the public eye. The scenario is bringing attention to the facility’s renown and reputation, even though different protest organizations are both for and against Saakashvili’s release.
- United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX), USA
It’s known as Supermax, ADX Florence, Florence ADX, or the Alcatraz of the Rockies, and is the highest-security facility in the US. The Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, and 9/11 attacker Zacarias Moussaoui all reside in this 1994-built structure, which is home to some of the most dangerous offenders in the world.
In their concrete, 7-by-12-foot (2.4-by-3.6-meter) cells, inmates at this facility are kept in isolation for 23 hours every day. Prisoners are fed through tiny gaps in the metal doors of their cells, and the windows are minuscule. When inmates are permitted to leave their cells for the hour-long recreation session, they are escorted to a tiny outside cage while wearing a variety of restraints by several guards. Robert Hood, a former warden, once referred to the facility as “a clean version of hell.
- Camp 14 Kaechon, North Korea
Camp 14 and Kacheon, a 155 square kilometer (60 square miles) prison complex, is situated not far from the geographic center of North Korea. According to sources from the U.S. Department of State Camp 14 was purportedly built in 1959 near the nation’s core, some 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Pyongyang. Camp 14 is classified as a political prisoner camp with a 15,000-person capacity.
This implies that they are currently serving life terms for being “enemies of the state.” Inmates are frequently forced to labor as slaves in the textile, mining, and agricultural industries while also starving. Additionally, Camp 14 employs a method of punishment called “three generations of punishment,” which suggests that a significant portion of the inmates are there solely because they are connected to someone who is under investigation for a crime and are therefore likely to pass away there without ever having committed a crime.
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- Gitarama Prison, Rwanda
Gitarama is the most crowded prison in the world, housing almost 7,000 convicts in a facility designed to hold just 400. It is believed that the majority of the detainees were complicit in the Rwandan genocide in 1994.
Because of the extreme overcrowding, the men and women who live here must stand barefoot on the filthy ground all day, which causes their feet to rot. The majority of convicts are unable to access the care they need, which leads to half a dozen fatalities per day. Many end up needing amputations, but with only one full-time physician assigned to the jail, this is the case for the majority of detainees.
- Black Dolphin Prison, Russia
Penal Colony No. 6, popularly known as the Black Dolphin Prison, is located not far from the Kazakhstan-Russia border. Only the nation’s most violent and dangerous convicted criminals—including Chechen terrorists, cannibals, pedophiles, and serial killers—are permitted to get it. The neighborhood got its name from the dolphin sculpture the inmates erected on the lawn in front of the jail reception. Every 15 minutes, guards patrol the facility, and the prisoners are always watched on video.
Each cell is 50 square feet (4.6 square meters) in size and has three sets of steel doors to keep it extra-isolated from the guards and other inmates. Only 90 minutes a day on a desolate concrete exercise yard are prisoners allowed outside of their cells. To prevent them from learning the layout of the prison, interacting with other inmates, or overwhelming the guards, they are cuffed, blindfolded, and made to walk with their heads bowed whenever they are transferred anywhere inside the facility. Black dolphins are said to be the only ones who use this strategy.
- Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, Kenya
Kenya is infamous for its brutal prison conditions, with Kamiti Maximum Security Prison in the Roysambu Constituency being regarded as the worst. The British built it in 1954 and designed it after an old-style colonial institution to house criminals during a state of emergency declared in October 1952. The old gallows in Kamiti are still there, even though the last execution there happened in 1987. The area is unsanitary, and it is well-known for being crowded.
The prison has a capacity of 1,200 inmates, yet there are reportedly between 1,800 and 2,500 prisoners jammed within. Serious conditions like gonorrhea, syphilis, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and dysentery are common. Despite having a reputation for housing political prisoners and carrying out hangings, Kamiti only became more well-known in 2008 when an incident brought on by a drug search was captured on camera and broadcast on television. In 2021, it grabbed headlines once more when three terror suspects who had received sentences escaped. Seven wardens were ultimately taken into custody for aiding their escape.
- Terre Haute, U.S.A.
In this Indiana prison complex, there are units with maximum security, medium security, and low security. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the perpetrator of the Boston bombing, resides at Terre Haute, often known as “Guantanamo North,” and is currently scheduled to be executed. Terre Haute is home to the federal government of the United States execution room. The special confinement facility in Terre Haute, where death row inmates are kept, was allegedly found to have “grossly inadequate” conditions by the ACLU in 2008. According to the complaint, the convicts were refused access to medical care and mental health services, and they were unable to sleep due to the prison’s overwhelming noise.
As of January 2021, Terre Haute has the most COVID-19 cases in the federal prison system, including death row inmates. Federal executions at Terre Haute have been suspended ever since U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said on July 1, 2021, that the Department of Justice would review its stance on the capital penalty. The Trump administration carried out 13 federal executions just a few months before his term as president came to an end, including Lisa Montgomery’s lethal injection execution on January 12, 2021. Montgomery was the first American woman to be executed in 67 years. 46 inmates at Terre Haute are still awaiting execution, including Dylann Roof, who was handed the capital penalty for federal hate crimes after killing nine people.
- San Quentin State Prison, U.S.A.
The violence in San Quentin, the oldest prison in California, is well-known. It has been the residence of several renowned criminals, including Scott Peterson, Charles Manson, and Robert F. Kennedy’s killer, Sirhan Sirhan. With more than 700 death row inmates, it was both the only gas chamber in California and the biggest death row facility in the nation.
Early in 2022, the state of California started the process of closing the death row and relocating the inmates, three years after the governor of the state outlawed executions. Over time, notably in the 1960s and 1970s, the guards at San Quentin were known for promoting racial unrest and corruption.
Diyarbakir Prison, Turkey
In 1980, the Turkish Ministry of Justice erected Diyarbakir Prison. Following the September 12 coup d’état in Turkey, Diyarbakir was converted into a military jail under martial law, where torture to assimilate the Kurds into the populace was common. Following the September coup, 650,000 individuals were imprisoned, and the majority of them experienced torture like beatings. Nearly 500 people passed away, the majority of them in Diyarbakir. Prisoners in Diyarbakir were subjected to horrific acts of systematic torture throughout “the period of barbarity,” which refers to the early and middle 1980s while the city was still growing.
The abuse of the body and mind, deprivation of sleep, sensory, water, and food, “Palestinian hangings” (hanging by the arms), mock executions, electric shocks to the genitals, removal of healthy teeth and nails, rape or threat of rape, and worse have all been detailed in hundreds of testimonies from former Diyarbakir inmates. Superiors have, however, rarely backed up these claims. These mistreatments of Kurdish captives catalyzed the growth of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is still at war with the Turkish government. Diyarbakir, which is still in use today, is notorious for having a high ratio of prisoners to human rights violations. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced in 2021 that it would be converted into a cultural center, to mixed reviews.