10 Worst Prisons In History

[Music] ten worst prisons in history number 10 pitest prison from 1949 until 1951 this stalinist romanian prison was home to an infamous experiment known as the protest experiment according to open democracy this quote-unquote experiment was actually started by inmates of the prison itself who had previously been jailed as anti-communist fascists they formed the odcc or the organization of prisoners with communist convictions and went about re-educating other inmates in the most horrifying ways possible this included torturing other inmates by making them stare at light bulbs making them repeatedly headbutt each other and even electrocution they were also kept in squalid conditions on purpose and forced to perform humiliating tasks such as baptisms involving sewage this would then psychologically break other prisoners into joining the odcc and renouncing their anti-communist tendencies it's worth noting too that this was fully supported by the director of the prison himself this brutality was eventually stopped in 1952 after a regime shift in the country but by that point over 700 prisoners have been through the horrific process 30 of whom died number nine the mama teen labeling italy's mamma teen as a prison is a bit of a misnomer really as it was more similar to a hybrid of a 12-foot deep underground dungeon and a sewage system built in the 7th century bc the mammatin was essentially two dark dank cells stacked on top of each other there was no natural light due to them being subterranean in fact the only way to get out or into the lower cell was via a hole in the ground of the upper one solution an ancient historian described it as having a fearsome darkness and stench prisoners were often put into the lower chamber before execution failing that they just left them there to rot and starve it's worth reminding too that this complex was built within a sewage system legend has it that saints peter and paul were actually held there but did not die as they were later crucified for this reason it's part of various pilgrimages since it's been converted into a church memorializing the abject horror the prisoners of the mamma teen went through number eight erga prison mongolia in 1916 naturalist roy chapman andrews future director of the american museum of natural history traveled across asia he documented his experiences in his book across mongolian plains in 1921 during which he mentions witnessing a prison he described as one of the worst in the world in it he mentioned seeing rooms full of coffins that were four feet long and two feet wide inside a prison in ergo mongolia andrews explains that it was these tombs that were the prisoners cells which were designed so the prisoners could not fully lay down or sit up comfortably there was just a six inch wide hole in the coffins where they're given food that is to quote andrews if they remember to give them any the prisoners were also handcuffed and their limbs would shrivel away due to lack of use while the length of stay in these caskets varied and would often be used purely to hold prisoners before they were executed many of those incarcerated here unsurprisingly died in this horrific captivity number 7. camp sumter military prison georgia created during the american civil war in february of 1864 camp sumpter military prison was the largest confederate prison in the whole conflict also known as andersonville camp sumpter was built to hold ten thousand people but held over thirty thousand which gives you a hint at the problems it faced the prison was supposed to be built rapidly but the price of lumber was hugely inflated at the time which meant it was never fully built properly as a result because there were no barracks to keep them in instead the prisoners were open to the elements almost all of the time some of them had shanties made of blankets and bits of wood whereas others dug holes in the ground to themselves the cam was built around a creek with water running through it however this was soon contaminated with sewage making the prisoners extremely vulnerable to disease there was also very little in the way of food due to the confederates losing supplies and what food they had was of extremely low quality with next to no proper preparation by the time the prison was closed at the end of the war thirteen thousand inmates had died as a result of these conditions and its commander henry verse was executed for their murder number six karandaru penitentiary over seven thousand inmates lived within the walls of brazil's karen deru penitentiary whereas there was only space for a third that number as a result there was one guard per every hundred prisoners so things were bound to go wrong as soon as the prisoners arrived they are told that they need to rent their cells even those lucky enough to have left the prison have still apparently owed back payments for this they actually tended to have a fair bit of freedom and control and could get whatever they want within the prison through illicit means including mobile phones there's even a prison within the prison called the yellow as those inside rarely see sunlight however it's most famous for the results of a riot after a game of soccer 300 police officers stormed the jail and killed over 100 prisoners allegedly this included prisoners who had surrendered or were trying to hide often at close range in 2014 73 of the police officers were convicted some of whom were sentenced to 156 years in jail the prison was later demolished in 2002. number 5. devil's island 10 miles off the coast of french guiana lay one of the deadliest and most notorious jails in the whole of the french penal colony ile du diable or devil's island initially used as a leper colony soon political prisoners were sent to the island too during its use between 1852 and 1953. the prison was pretty much the only building on the whole island surrounded by shark-infested waters which were often the downfall of any seafaring would be escapees the convicts were forced to provide labor in all conditions while shackled some were even exposed to the elements all of the time with no roof on their very small cells this meant they were often attacked by animals on the island too like vampire bats and rats solitary confinement wasn't much better though as that was spent in complete darkness devil's island saw 80 000 prisoners come and go though the vast majority never got to leave the island as thousands upon thousands died of various diseases as well as the poor diet and labor conditions to this day the general public can visit other islands in the former penal colony but venturing to devil's island is strictly taboo number four the hms jersey it's late 18th century in america at the height of the war for independence against the british who were occupying new york city at the time prisoners of war or rebels had to be imprisoned by the british somewhere as they numbered by the thousands so the british used warships that were docked at shore to keep them on as prison ships the worst of these was the ship nicknamed hell the hms jersey it transpires that name is horrifyingly suitable this ship kept more than 1 000 prisoners on board where they were tortured starved and exposed to a deadly combination of diseases this ship was meant for 400 sailors the prisoners had nowhere to even sit or lie down since the vast majority of them were kept below deck there was no sunlight and very little ventilation in the summer it was deathly warm in the winter unspeakably cold those on board the ship were eventually given a choice one way out was to betray their country and join the british army but the many thousands that died clearly didn't take or weren't even given that choice as the number of people who perished on board the jersey and other prison ships was almost three times the amount of the patriots who died in armed combat number three ho low prison vietnam nicknamed the hanoi hilton during the vietnam war hoelo prison was anything but luxury a prison camp for american prisoners of war the conditions at hoholo deteriorated rapidly with the increase of prisoners the vietnamese government used extreme methods of torture in order to extract military secrets from the u.s soldiers including rope bindings beatings and solitary confinement as well as this prisoner's legs were often strapped into iron stocks that were left in the french colonial era of the prison these were so tight that they often cut into the skin causing lacerations and infection they were also forced to defecate where they lay and left to rot with the rats and cockroaches prisoners were rarely fair to starvation was used as a form of torture and when they were fed they were often given watery soups with feces and rocks george mcknight a six foot two inch u.s soldier was forced to lay in a four-foot trench with his hands tied behind his back for 34 days as punishment for trying to escape power low the vietnamese government still denies the wrongdoings to these pows to this very day number 2. tadma prison syria built by the french in the 1930s tatmur prison is located in the heart of the syrian desert and was the place that syrian prime minister hafez al-assad sent thousands of political dissidents to be humiliated tortured and executed between 1971 and 2000. the prison is best known for the 1980 massacre after a failed attempt at assassinating assad members of the defense brigade flew to tamdur and their soldiers went from cell to cell shooting prisoners with machine guns an amnesty international report estimates that up to 1 000 people were murdered in just minutes most of which were supporters of the muslim brotherhood their bodies were dumped in mass graves outside the prison cells had windows covered with barbed wire and prisoners were under permanent surveillance and not allowed to make eye contact with each other on arrival new inmates were thrown a reception party where they were whipped mercilessly forced into car tyres and beaten some prisoners never even made it through that reception when inmates would cry out for medical help for other dying prisoners they were told only call us to collect bodies number one holmesburg prison philadelphia usa holmesburg prison was opened in 1896 to help relieve overcrowding at the nearby moyamensing prison much like other entries in this list this prison was no stranger to torture corruption and murder in 1938 over half of the inmates went on hunger strike because the food was that bad 25 of these were identified as leaders of the strike and were taken to a building called the klondike a narrow cell block lined with radiators and steam pipes which in the peak of the august heat wave reached nearly 200 degrees four of these men died with injuries pertaining to severe beatings and being boiled alive the prison has also been the setting of many murders including that of the warden and his deputy in 1973 and a bloody riot in 1970 in which prisoners were armed with meat cleavers and boning knives during a lawsuit that followed attention was drawn to the filthy and overcrowded conditions and severe beatings that inmates had to endure as if that wasn't bad enough prisoners were also subjected to medical experiments where dr albert clickman exposed participants to herpes staphylococcus radioactive isotopes chemicals are called skin blistering psychoactive drugs and carcinogens so those were the 10 worst prisons in history have we missed any out let me know in the comments down below in the meantime though be sure to give this video a like and subscribe to all time 10s if you haven't done so already for more great videos just like the one on screen right now

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Keywords: alltime 10s, alltime10, 10s, top 10, top5, worst prisons in history, worst prisons, worst prisons in the world, prisons, pitesti prison, mamertine prison, urga prison, camp sumter, camp sumter prison, carandiru penitentiary, carandiru penitenciário, carandiru prison, devils island, devils island prison, hms jersey, hms hell, hoa lo prison, hanoi hilton, tadmur prison, holmesburg prison, brutal prisons, horrifying prisons, terrifying prisons, scary

Id: zbfwHVoplOY

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/LeahR84]

Interesting!