Monday, June 30th, 2008...2:07 pm
The 10 Worst Prisons In The World
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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 Sabeneta 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.
In all these prisons money always talks, if you have some savings you are very much on the way to avoiding alot of the trouble mentioned above, if not you should be looking at a way to get some credit cards as soon as possible.
36 Comments
July 1st, 2008 at 1:53 am
One might forget what these individuals have been imprisoned for such as murder, serial rapists, pedophiles etc. But that’s no reason for being treated inhumanely such as surgeries without anesthetics.
Prison is a world unto itself and has its own rules amongst prisoners. Shudder the thought of having to live it.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:41 am
So? If you don’t like to be in a prison, don’t commit crimes.
July 1st, 2008 at 5:25 am
where’s SONA on this rank??
Lechero will know about this
July 1st, 2008 at 6:47 am
I Would love to run a prison…mine would be so like mean though..like prisoners…would not get NINE HOURS even…maybe Seven…a week..if they are good…
July 1st, 2008 at 6:50 am
You forgot Penitenciaría Federal de Sona in Panama. That place is crazy.
July 1st, 2008 at 8:29 am
i can´t take seriously this list if you are not considering any Mexican prison… Specifically the ones in Mexico City…
July 1st, 2008 at 11:52 am
note to self: Never do anything illegal. Ever!
July 1st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I’m amazed! Astonished! Three in America, but only one in Turkey, only one in the Arab world, and none in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India? But most surprising, the list writer didn’t manage to kick Israel in the nuts even once!
July 1st, 2008 at 5:38 pm
i dont see the prision (i think it was in costarrica) where they just set on fire the m13 (MARAS) lke 100 die that day in the fires!
July 1st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Criminal’s don’t need summer clubs to spend their sentence, they need a reason to want to not go back
July 1st, 2008 at 6:11 pm
People that think “Oh my god those poor little inmates only allowed out of there cells for 4 hours a week”, disgust me. Inmates who are locked up like that have a good reason for it. Most of the time its because of something like, they cant get along with staff or like to throw their feces at people or want to kill some one or themselves. So I think they deserve what they get.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Being a NY resident, I didn’t know Rikers was so bad, I’m really surprised.
July 1st, 2008 at 6:48 pm
And that sums up why you don’t mess with the law.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:11 pm
This web post was the shit. I didn’t know Woody Harrelson’s Dad died in ADX!
July 1st, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Carandiru does not longer exists.
There is a Film based on real life experiences of doctor Drauzio Varella, while he was doing a social work of Aids prevention. The situation came to a climax in 1992, when in order to smother a rebellion, police force killed 111 men.
see on IMDB
July 1st, 2008 at 9:15 pm
I live 5 minutes away from San Quentin and frequently listen to the prison guards on a radio scanner. Sometimes it sounds like they are laying down the law, yet other times it sounds like they are getting ’schooled’ by the inmates.
July 1st, 2008 at 9:41 pm
wait….I didn’t realize prisons were about torture and death….what happened to the 21st century and rehabilitation?…oh yeah, that was just the bs they tell you on the news
July 1st, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Digby: “So? If you don’t like to be in a prison, don’t commit crimes.”
Moron.
1) In France, they can keep you in prison almost indefinitely until they charge you. That means you might be innocent and thrown in a cell with 4 rapists who will turn you into their slave for months until someone figures out they got the wrong guy. That’s also the case in the US, when they found out that about 1/2 the inmates in Gitmo really were there by mistake, but by then they’d already been tortured.
2) All crimes are not born equal. When you commit a crime, society, through democracy, decides what your level of punishment should be: a fine, some days in prison, etc. The punishment for a very minor crime should not be rape and repeated beatings at the hand of hardened criminals, unless the People decide it should. And they haven’t so far.
3) The notion of crime varies in time. Some things that were a crime in the past are now considered ok (like for a black man to sleep with a white woman). For that reason, one should err on the side of caution. In any case, basic human dignities should be protected at all times.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Ramon Machtesh:
The US has the most incarcerated people in the world, 4 times the world average. As a % of its population, more than Russia, Cuba, Noth Korea, Syria, Iran, etc… more than any African dictatorship. It’s not because Americans are more criminally inclined, or because they’re starving to death and they have to break the law to survive. It points to a systemic problem with repression. There are too many laws (so you can’t move without breaking one); there is too much spirit of “vengeance”, etc. There is something wrong with a system “of the people, for the people, by the people” that can put so many of its people in prison. So it’s not surprising that it should appear quite prominently on the list.
July 1st, 2008 at 10:32 pm
i live in Venezuela and our prisons have every week hunger strikes, they kill each other in there, decapitations included… you took only one to make this post, it`s almost most prisons here…
here it`s ugly man!
July 1st, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Are you freakin insane???? What kind of BS idiot can put the american prisons as worse than AIDS rape, torture, and death of the other prisons listed. I think the worse prison in America is still better than 300 others… Maybe its interesting info– but seems screwed up
July 1st, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Menard isn’t any joke either, but if you don’t want to be mistreated… simply obey the rules.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Saying that this kind of treatment is ok because they are criminals is ignorant. First of all some of these people are political, meaning they didnt agree with the people in power and thats it. Second allowing this kind of treatment now means it will be tolerated when the people in power decide that what you thought is legal behavior no longer is. I.E political protesting or smoking medical marijuana. Third justice systems rarely get it right. There is a frightening amount of people put in prison, including death row, that are not guilty of the crime they were suppose to have committed. The attitude that this is ok because its not you is what keeps this kind of thing going on untill one day it will be you
July 1st, 2008 at 11:54 pm
ADX is #1 because they get little sunlight which bumps Syria where they chop you up in little pieces? And are you sure 100% of all prisoners are quilty or just a way to clear the books? Certainly, no politics or racism is involved here!
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:35 am
“Tadmor Military Prison, Syria . . . 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.”
Does nobody remember Sobibor or Dachau? Auschwitz? Not to downplay the atrocities mentioned above, but they certainly weren’t “the worst known massacre of its kind to ever have taken place.” Punishment of the guilty can be, but isn’t necessarily cruel. Wholesale annihilation of millions of innocents is unhuman.
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:43 am
Interesting exchange here. But for all those who think it’s as simple as “if you can’t stand the time, don’t do the crime” …
I’ll grant you there are some pretty vile people out there who honestly aren’t worth a bucket of spit (God may think otherwise but I don’t have to agree). We executed one of them in Florida today. But really folks. Do you honestly believe everyone in prison is there because they are bad people? Some are imprisoned because they disagree with the politics of the regime. Some were framed. Some were convicted because the police or the government in power “had” to make an arrest and they couldn’t nail the real culprit. Some may have chosen the wrong religion. For God’s sake, as a gay man *I* could easily be jailed in many countries… not for anything I did but for who I am. What about a woman in one of those primitive countries who automatically becomes a criminal when she is raped?
Let me suggest that advocating for humane prisons may be purely a practical matter. Quite apart from the fact that encouraging (or allowing) unbridled violence and torture just brings us down to the level of the miscreants who really do belong there, let’s not forget that a significant number of those in prison do NOT belong there. Just how small a minority they comprise doesn’t really seem to matter that much. Even if it’s just a few, don’t THEY deserve a chance at some small sliver of justice?
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:09 am
The sad thing is, I’m sure we’d never hear about the prisons that are worse than these.
One question though: How is ADX worse than some of the others on this list?
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:06 am
number 1 seems the tamest number 2 on the list is by far the worst.and i find it hard to believe that there isn’t worse prisons in Mexico or Africa but three on the list are in the U.S.
July 2nd, 2008 at 5:58 am
San Quentin? Give me a break! Aside from death row, it’s a lower custody level joint now. If you’re basing this list on violence alone, there are plenty of other US pens that FAR out rank Quentin.
The buildings are ancient and need to be condemned but that’s the case in lots of pens. People are all for locking the bad guys up and throwing away the key; unitl it comes time to pay to build a new joint.
July 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
Hmmm… Quantanamo Bay is also missing….
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 am
Prisoners don’t deserve any rights, they managed to strip someone of a particular right(s) when they committed the crime. Why should they have any. I think criminals are FUCKTARDS
July 4th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Burrows watches prison break, dude, if i ran my own prison, it would be like hell, my prison would make ppl not want to commit crimes
July 8th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
In a world of Billions [of people] it’s hard that only the human race doesn’t understand survival of the fittest.
The funds and moneies wasted on incarceration of those “bad seeds” would be so much better spent to educate and liberate those willing to cooperate and contribute. Sorry I just recognize even we are flawed.
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:18 pm
ADX sounds shockingly humane when you compare it to Carandiru. Just the idea of having to have surgery without anesthetics is enough to make me reluctant to commit any crimes in Brazil…well, not that I was planning to anyway…
July 31st, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Very interesting blog, i have added it to my fovourites, greetings
August 19th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
You forgot Angola prison in Louisiana.
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