15 Horrifying Prisons You'd Never Want To Visit!

15 Horrifying Prisons You'd Never Want To Visit 

 

By design, the prison life is a hard one. Whether you hold the opinion that it should be rough to deter repeat offenders or not, misery comes with the territory when you're locked away in one drab building for years. Of course, it doesn't help that you're sharing your time with strangers who stand accused of some of the most heinous acts you can imagine. Yet, there are still some places that even the most hardened criminals would give anything to stay away from. Prison isn't supposed to be pleasant but some facilities seem to go out of their way to be nightmarish.

Surprisingly, it's not always the most notorious prisons that inspire this dread. Alcatraz is famous for jailing Al Capone and the famous escape, but some inmates actually asked to be transferred there. The food was good, at least early on, and you could have as much as you wanted. It also had a well-stocked library and the one person per cell policy made some inmates feel safer against attacks from their fellow prisoners. As prisons went, you could do a lot worse.

If nothing else, these 15 dreaded penal colonies will show you just how much worse things could get.

 1. Hỏa Lò Prison (Hanoi, Vietnam)

 

Nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton," this Vietnamese prison was originally built by the French, but housed American POWs during the Vietnam War. Veterans remember it as a rusty, rat-infested hellhole with special rooms outfitted to torture prisoners.

2. Robben Island (South Africa)

This island prison is famous for holding Nelson Mandela, but a little research shows what a terrible time he had here. There was no running water, so prisoners had to use sanitary buckets as toilets. The only time they were able to talk to each other was while cleaning them since guards didn't like to hang around for that.

Robben Island inmates could also expect hard labor and barely edible food in smaller portions than regulations required. This was because the cooks tended to keep the best food for themselves.  

3. Lancaster Castle (Lancashire, England)

Before it was a prison, this castle was the site of medieval executions, the most of famous of which came during the Lancashire witch trials of 1612. Around this time, they would use a ghastly metal device designed for "keeping women quiet."
The prison's age also makes it a decrepit, cramped place today.

4. United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum (Colorado)

 

Also called ADX, this Rocky Mountain superjail houses America's most violent criminals, including over 40 terror suspects.

The most chilling aspect of life here is the sheer isolation, with inmates staying in their cells for 23 hours a day with no view of the outside world. If they behave, they get exercise in a recreation pen, but even these are totally isolated.

5. Goree Island (Senegal)

This wasn't a traditional prison, but rather a depot for the international slave trade. 15-20 people would be crammed into each 8.5x8.5 foot room, which eventually led to such terrible sanitary conditions that it caused an outbreak of plague.

6. HM Prison Holloway (London, England)

This prison famously held women who took part in the women's suffrage movement. These prisoners often went on hunger strikes when they arrived and guards force-fed them with rubber tubes. Eventually, public outrage against this practice brought about the "cat and mouse" act.This allowed those on hunger strikes to be released until they were well enough to be re-imprisoned.

7. Black Beach (Malabo, Equatorial Guinea)

This nightmarish place saw prisoners undergo cruel and unusual punishment that included suspending bound prisoners from poles, choking them by lighting candles under their faces, and pouring cold water on them. Many inmates died from this torture, while others met their end after being denied emergency medical care.

An inmate's family and friends could only visit after paying off the guards — and even they were sometimes beaten.

8. Attica Correctional Facility (Attica, New York)

This prison is infamous for a 1971 riot that killed 29 inmates and 10 hostages, but tensions brewed there long before those fateful four days. Inmates cited the prison's poor sanitation, lack of medical treatment and frequent beatings as major factors that contributed to the riot.

9. HM Prison Brixton (London, England)

This prison's claim to fame was its treadmill, on which inmates were forced to grind corn. Aside from being a notoriously unhealthy facility, HMP Brixton had eight-year-old children listed among its inmates.

10. Riker's Island (New York City, New York)

This infamous jail was and may continue to be plagued by corruption among officials, who ran an underground fight club known as "The Program." Guards would pit teenage inmates against each other as a bizarre way of "keeping order" and dangled phone, food, and TV privileges in front of the victors.

This program led to the stomping death of 18-year-old Christopher Robinson, which exposed the larger culture of violence entrenched in the facility.

11. Port Arthur (Tasmania)

Australian prisoners who landed here found themselves completely isolated from each other. For 23 hours each day, they stayed in their cells and largely worked on "menial tasks."Their exercise time was also done in isolation and the only time they saw other inmates was during mandatory church services on Sundays.

12. Orleans Parish Prison (New Orleans, Louisiana)

At this chaotic prison, even minor charges could lead to a death sentence. A man charged with public drunkenness was beaten to death by two guards, while another case saw 24-year-old Shawn Duncan die of dehydration after being restrained for 42 hours. He was there for traffic violations.  When Hurricane Katrina struck, thousands of inmates were abandoned in flooded cells for days without food or water. In another case, a woman was denied a gynecologist after bleeding for 30 days following a birth. For these reasons and more, the Justice Department reported that the Orleans Parish Prison staff are "deliberately indifferent to prisoners with serious medical and mental health needs."

13. HM Prison Pentonville (London, England)

HMP Pentonville pioneered the model for total prisoner isolation you'd find at ADX or Port Arthur and it was accused of literally driving inmates insane. Even today, it's not uncommon for inmates to leave their cells for less than two hours a week.

Although the isolation still exists to an extent, it's largely been replaced by overcrowding.

14. Pelican Bay State Prison (Crescent City, California)

 

Pelican Bay is another prison marked by 22 hours of isolation inside windowless cells and a similarly lonely exercise yard. This is technically only true if an inmate is punished with solitary confinement, but that only requires officials to decide they're a gang member so it's not uncommon for inmates showing good behavior to end up in the hole.

Once you're there, you may never come out. Some inmates have spent 10, 20, or even 40 years in solitary confinement, which led to a class-action lawsuit against the prison.

15. HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs (London, England)

 This prison is considered so filthy and unsafe that it caused a staff walk-out. The prison is known for its high levels of drug abuse and violence with inmates and staff alike fearing for their safety.