Going to prison is never a good thing. But in some parts of the world, it might just be a fate worse than death. And just in case you think the most hellish prisons in the world are all overseas, the United States has the dubious distinction of making the list as well, more than once.
Besides deterring you from committing any felonies you might have been considering, this article can highlight a serious global human rights problem that will not get better without determined international citizen advocacy. And of course this is difficult to muster because many people believe no punishment is bad enough for some criminals. But the question is, are we diminishing our own humanity by lacking basic empathy for other human beings? See what you think after reading about conditions in the world’s most feared prisons.
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- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees all human beings dignity and basic rights, including freedom from inhumane treatment.
- The worst prisons in the world are demonstrably in violation of one or more of these international human rights standards.
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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. While it is not legally binding, it sets a customary global standard for human rights. Its provisions have become part of 9 different binding treaties related to human rights. All 193 UN members have ratified at least one of these treaties. Some articles of the Declaration relevant to crime and punishment include:
- Article 1: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
- Article 5: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”
- Article 10: “Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal . . . “
- Article 11: “Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty . . . “
Here, in alphabetical order, are prisons that have attracted international attention for violation of one or more of these standards.
1. ADX Florence, Colorado, U.S.
This is a supermax facility that houses some of the country’s most dangerous criminals. Inmates have 23 hours a day of solitary confinement. This is considered by many critics a form of cruel and unusual punishment because of the severe mental effects of prolonged isolation on human beings.
2. Bang Kwang Central Prison, Thailand
This prison is notorious for the spread of infectious disease due to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. Prisoners are sentenced to long terms with few opportunities for rehabilitation and parole.
3. Black Dolphin Prison, Russia
This is undoubtedly the worst prison in Russia. Inmates there are the worst of the worst: terrorists, cannibals, pedophiles, murderers, and rapists. The prison is understaffed, so prisoners spend most of their time locked in cells crowded with far more inmates than it was designed for. Gang violence and lawlessness runs rampant.
4. Ciudad Barrios Prison, El Salvador
Ciudad Barrios Prison suffers from all the worst imaginable conditions of notorious prisons: overcrowding, disease, violence, gang turf wars, and abuse from corrupt staff. In recent years the country has cracked down harshly on gangs and the drug cartels, filling El Salvador’s prisons and resulting in even worse conditions for inmates.
5. Gldani Prison, Georgia
One of the horrors of the Gldani Prison in the Caucasus country of Georgia is that guards who should help guarantee prisoners’ safety participate with criminal gang members in assaulting, raping, and torturing prisoners. The prison is overcrowded and lacking in medical care, so disease runs rampant. Riots and protests among prisoners underscore the desperate conditions there.
6. Gitarama Central Prison, Rwanda
This is one of the most overcrowded prisons in the world. Built for 400, it houses 7,000 prisoners. It is so crowded, prisoners don’t have a place to sit or lay down and often have to stand in one place for hours in stifling heat, surrounded on all sides by other criminals. Some inmates have died of suffocation. Others have had their feet amputated because of diseases contracted from the filthy floors.
7. La Sabeneta Prison, Venezuela
This facility was built to accommodate 700 inmates but is packed with 3,700. The guard-to-prisoner ratio is 1:150. Gangs run life in the prison. Food and other necessities are inadequate for the number of inmates, leading to a darwinian survival-of-the-fittest situation. Violence between inmates, including murder, is is a daily fact of life there.
8. Rikers Island, New York, U.S.
Rikers Island, with an inmate population of about 6,000, has a reputation as one of the deadliest prisons in the world. Violence, abuse, and neglect have led to multiple judgments against the city. SWAT units are deployed to search cells and confiscate weapons from inmates, but deaths are still a regular part of life there, leading some to say it is safer in the most dangerous neighborhoods of New York than in Rikers.
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