The 10 Worst Prisons In The World

The thought of going to prison is enough to scare the living daylights out of anyone, especially with the horror stories that you can read in newspapers and books and those you see on TV. Stabbings, murders, violence, gang rape and any number of other horrors are all widely broadcast by people that have spent time on the inside. Of course, they’re not your run of the mill prison stories because you don’t tend to hear much about the ones that don’t see any action from one year to the next, but the same names do keep coming up time and time again. These inmates are in there for serious crimes and not your run of the mill credit card fraud.

Certain prisons, both old and new, are notorious for violence and some easily out perform others in the horror stories stakes. The 10 worst prisons in the world are listed below. Read ‘em and weep!

1. ADX, Colorado – This is the ultimate prison, literally. Since it opened in 1994, ADX is nothing but slow and inhumane torture. Although those there are the worst of the worst, human rights protestors from all over the world have targeted it. Inmates are only allowed out of their cells for 9 hours a week and barely interact with anyone. There’s hardly any sunlight and you have to do everything in your cell. If ever there was a way to destroy any semblance of hope an individual had then ADX is it!

2. Tadmor Military Prison, Syria – This is one of the most brutal prisons ever. Torture, executions and untold brutality goes on within these walls. The medieval methods of torture have been well documented. Innocent and guilty alike have been dragged via a rope until they’re dead, beaten to death with pipes and chopped into pieces with an axe. However, that’s nothing compared to the massacre of June 27, 1980. Approximately 500 inmates were killed for no apparent reason by the guards and commandos. This is the worst known massacre of its kind to ever have taken place.

3. Carandiru Penitentiary, Brazil – Prison massacres, HIV, legalised torture… Whatever you can imagine from a prison, they have it here. A fifth of all 7,500 inmates have HIV and the vast majority of them didn’t have it when they first walked through the gates. On top of that, if they have to have surgery then forget the anaesthetics. Apparently, anaesthetic is a luxury soothe patients are operated on without anything to numb the pain at. Instead, they’re left to scream. Every now and then there’s a massacre or riots as well but at least that’d be relatively painless in relation.

4. La Sante Prison, France – La Sante is well known for its suicide figures, with 124 suicides occurring in 1999 alone. Prisoners have actually eaten rat poison to escape the depravity here. Some prisoners become slaves, others only leave their cells for 4 hours a day and the violence is horrendous. The punishment block has no running water and many are left down there for days because of minor misdemeanours. The treatment just isn’t humane by any stretch of the imagination.

5. La Sabaneta Prison, Venezuela – With 1 guard to 150 inmates here its no wonder that this is one of the worst prisons on Earth right now. Corruption and bribery run riot here, and that’s just the staff! The prisoners are worse with 624 inmates being hurt and 196 being murdered within the walls in 1995 alone. Yes, all of that happened in just one year! The previous year though 108 died in a day when the inmates had a gun battle… between themselves. Not a nice place to be methinks.

6. Rikers, New York – 5 years ago, this prison would’ve been at number 1 on the list but recent reforms have forced a dramatic improvement so it’s a little tamer than it used to be. For example, the 70 stabbings that take place there every year now used to be around 1,000 a decade ago. The violence is legendary and guards reported that they lived in fear of their lives. Although this isn’t the case anymore, it’s a ghost that’ll haunt the prison forever.

7. Diyarbakir Prison, Turkey – This is a lovely prison to be in. With children imprisoned for life and guards masterminding attacks against the prisons, it’s definitely less than a safe place to be. Prisoners are classed largely as political so they have no rights whatsoever. This may sound a little like the Dark Ages, and it really is. The guards do as they please, as an attack against 33 prisoners in 1996 proves. 10 died and 23 were injured, all at the hands of the authority.

8. San Quentin State Prison, California – As one of the world’s best known prisons, San Quentin is synonymous with violence, executions and the worst of the worst criminals in California to date. It has over 1500 employees and they still can’t control the inmates. The riots in February 2006 proved a good example of that. Racial attacks led to 100 prisoners being badly injured and 2 killed. That’s not the only incident but it’s a great example of just what goes down behind the walls.

9. Mendoza Prison, Argentina – It isn’t the violence here that you have to worry about but the conditions that you’d have to survive if you were sent there. The prison should cater for 600 prisoners but there are over 1000 more there than should be so the overcrowding is horrendous. That isn’t to say that you wouldn’t be exposed to torture because you most likely would at some point.

10. Nairobi Prison, Kenya – Some prisons make their way onto the list of worst prisons not because of violence but because of the conditions that they house prisoners in year in and year out. Inmates here tend to be naked and infected with horrible diseases that kill them slowly. Overcrowding means that they don’t get the medical help they need and most die in agony.

Design and facilities

Male and female prisoners are typically kept in separate locations or separate prisons altogether. Prison accommodation, especially modern prisons in the developed world, are often divided into wings. A building holding more than one wing is known as a "hall".

Amongst the facilities that prisons may have are:

• A main entrance, which may be known as the 'gatelodge' or 'sally port' (stemming from old castle nomenclature)
• A chapel, mosque or other religious facility, which will often house chaplaincy offices and facilities for counselling of individuals or groups
• An 'education facility', often including a library, providing adult education or continuing education opportunities
• A gym or an exercise yard, a fenced, usually open-air-area which prisoners may use for recreational and exercise purposes
• A healthcare facility or hospital
• A segregation unit (also called a 'block' or 'isolation cell'), used to separate unruly, dangerous, or vulnerable prisoners from the general population, also sometimes used as punishment.
A section of vulnerable prisoners (VPs), or protective Custody (PC) units, used to accommodate prisoners classified as vulnerable, such as sex offenders, former police officers, informants, and those that have gotten into debt or trouble with other prisonersA section of safe cells, used to keep prisoners under constant visual observation, for example when considered at risk of suicide
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• A visiting area, where prisoners may be allowed restricted contact with relatives, friends, lawyers, or other people
• A death row in some prisons, a section for criminals awaiting execution
• A staff accommodation area, where staff and guards live in the prison, typical of historical prisons
• A service/facilities area housing support facilities like kitchens
• Industrial or agricultural plants operated with convict labor
• A recreational area containing a TV and pool table
• Increasingly prisons enforce a ban on tobacco smoking

• Prisons are normally surrounded by fencing, walls, earthworks, geographical features, or other barriers to prevent escape. Multiple barriers, concertina wire, electrified fencing, secured and defensible main gates, armed guard towers, lighting, motion sensors, dogs, and roving patrols may all also be present depending on the level of security. Remotely controlled doors, CCTV monitoring, alarms, cages, restraints, nonlethal and lethal weapons, riot-control gear and physical segregation of units and prisoners may all also be present within a prison to monitor and control the movement and activity of prisoners within the facility.

  Modern prison designs have sought to increasingly restrict and control the movement of prisoners throughout the facility while permitting a maximal degree of direct monitoring by a smaller corrections staff. As compared to traditional large landing-cellblock designs which were inherited from the 19th century and which permitted only intermittent observation of prisoners, many newer prisons are designed in a decentralized "podular" layout. Smaller, separate and self-contained housing units known as "pods" or "modules" are designed to hold between sixteen and fifty prisoners each, and are arranged around exercise yards or support facilities in a decentralized "campus" pattern. A small number of corrections officers, sometimes a single officer, is assigned to supervise each pod. The pods contain tiers of cells arranged around a central control station or desk from which a single officer can monitor all of the cells and the entire pod, control cell doors, and communicate with the rest of the prison. Pods may be designed for high-security "indirect-supervision", in which officers in segregated and sealed control booths monitor smaller numbers of prisoners confined to their cells. An alternative is "direct-supervision", in which officers work within the pod and directly interact with and supervise prisoners, who may spend the day outside their cells in a central "dayroom" on the floor of the pod. Movement in or out of the pod to and from exercise yards, work assignments or medical appointments can be restricted to individual pods at designated times, and is generally centrally controlled. Goods and services, such as meals, laundry, commissary, educational materials, religious services and medical care can increasingly be brought to individual pods or cells as well.

  Conversely, despite these design innovations, overcrowding at many prisons, particularly in the U.S., has resulted in a contrary trend, as many prisons are forced to house large numbers of prisoners, often hundreds at a time, in gymnasiums or other large buildings that have been converted into massive open dormitories.

  Lower-security prisons are often designed with less restrictive features, confining prisoners at night in smaller locked dormitories or even cottage or cabin-like housing while permitting them freer movement around the grounds to work or activities during the day.

The Introduction

A prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned and usually deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Prisons are conventionally institutions, which form part of the criminal justice system of a country, such that imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime.

In popular parlance of many countries, the term jail (gaol) is considered synonymous with prison.

A criminal suspect who has been charged with or is likely to be charged with a criminal offense may be held on remand in prison if he or she is denied, refused or unable to meet conditions of bail, or is unable to post bail. This may also occur where the court determines that the suspect is at risk of absconding before the trial, or is otherwise a risk to society. A criminal defendant may also be held in prison while awaiting trial or a trial verdict. If found guilty, a defendant will be convicted and may receive a custodial sentence requiring imprisonment.

Prisons may also be used as a tool of political repression to detain political prisoners, prisoners of conscience, and "enemies of the state", particularly by authoritarian regimes. In times of war or conflict, prisoners of war may also be detained in prisons. A prison system is the organizational arrangement of the provision and operation of prisons, and depending on their nature, may invoke a corrections system. Although people have been imprisoned throughout history, they have also regularly been able to perform prison escapes.