Imprisonment has long been considered a form of punishment for crimes committed. The size and amenities offered by prisons around the world vary, depending on the types of lawbreakers they house. Comfortable beds, private bathrooms, and extracurricular opportunities such as rock climbing, tennis, and horseback riding have all been reported in minimum security “luxury” prisons. However, there are prisons on the other side of the spectrum that is severely overcrowded, have excessively violent environments, and lack adequate medical care for inmates. This list includes 5 of the most dangerous places to be locked up.
1. Gitarama Prison, Rwanda
Gitarama, the world’s most overcrowded prison, houses over 7,000 inmates in a facility that holds only 400. The majority of the inmates are suspected perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Due to the extreme overpopulation, these men and women must stand barefoot on filthy ground for long periods, causing their feet to rot. Many require amputations, and with only one full-time doctor on staff, most inmates cannot receive the care they need, resulting in half a dozen deaths each day.
2. Camp 22, North Korea
The Hoeryong Concentration Camp, also recognized as Camp 22, has been in operation since 1965, but its existence was kept hidden for decades until satellite photographers of the facility became public. Camp 22 is one of North Korea’s estimated 30 internment camps. Because a person’s entire relatives can be apprehended for their crime, it is said to grab over 50,000 men, women, and children. Prisoners are undernourished, brutalized, and forced to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week in disciplines and mines.
3. United States Penitentiary, Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX), USA
Also known as ADX Florence, Florence ADMAX, Supermax, or the Alcatraz of the Rockies, this is the most maximum-security prison in the United States. Built in 1994, this facility houses some of the world’s most dangerous criminals, including Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber), Ramzi Yousef (responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing), and Zacarias Moussaoui (involved in the 9/11 attacks). Inmates at this facility spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement in their 7-by-12 foot concrete cells containing unmovable concrete furniture such as a stool, desk, and bed topped with a thin mattress. Cell windows measure only three feet in height and four inches in width, and meals are served through small slots in the metal doors. When prisoners are allowed out of their cells during the one-hour recreation period, they wear several restraints and are escorted by multiple guards to a small outdoor cage. Former warden Robert Hood once described the prison as “a clean version of hell.”
4. Rikers Island Prison, USA
Made up of 10 separate jails which house men, women, and youth, Rikers Island Prison have a reputation for excessive violence, corruption, and gross mistreatment of its inmates, especially those who are mentally ill. In 2008, after the beating death of 18-year-old Christoper Robinson, it was found that the inmates responsible were part of “The Program,” a secret society run by the prison’s guards to have certain inmates exert violence toward other prisoners as a way to maintain order. Rikers also has one of America’s highest rates of solitary confinement. These cells are used so often that the Department of Corrections has recently built 1,000 more special isolation units for adolescents and those with mental illnesses.
5. Mendoza Prison, Argentina
Mendoza Prison is a madhouse with a population over three times its capacity. As many as five inmates are crowded into cells that measure only four square meters. And with no proper sewage system at the facility, prisoners are forced to use plastic bags and bottles in their washrooms. There is also no primary medical care; inmates only see a doctor if they have died.