These are the 8 most feared prisons that are still active

Going to jail is never good. But in some parts of the world it can be a fate worse than death. And just in case you’re thinking that the world’s most hellish prisons are all abroad, the United States has the dubious honor of making the list more than once as well.

This article can not only deter you from committing crimes, but it can also highlight a serious global human rights problem that will not improve without determined international citizen advocacy. And this is of course difficult to achieve, because many people believe that no punishment is bad enough for some criminals. But the question is: are we diminishing our own humanity through a lack of basic empathy for other people? See what you think after reading about the conditions in the world’s most feared prisons.

24/7 Wall St. insights

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees the dignity of basic rights of all people, including freedom from inhuman treatment.
• The world’s worst prisons demonstrably violate one or more of these international human rights standards.
• Also: Discover “The next NVIDIA

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly. Although not legally binding, it sets a common global standard for human rights. Its provisions have become part of nine different binding human rights treaties. 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 has the right in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal. . . “
• Article 11: “Everyone accused of a criminal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. . . “

Listed here, in alphabetical order, are prisons that have attracted international attention for violating these standards.

1. ADX Florence, Colorado, USA

This is a supermax facility that houses some of the country’s most dangerous criminals. Prisoners are in solitary confinement 23 hours a day. This is considered by many critics to be a form of cruel and unusual punishment due to the mental effects of prolonged isolation on people.

2. Bang Kwang Central Prison, Thailand

This prison is notorious for spreading infectious diseases due to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. Prisoners are sentenced to long prison terms with few opportunities for rehabilitation and parole.

3. Black Dolphin Prison, Russia

This is undoubtedly the worst prison in Russia. The prisoners there are the worst of the worst: terrorists, cannibals, pedophiles, murderers and rapists. The prison is understaffed, meaning prisoners spend most of their time locked in cells that are filled with more prisoners than they were designed for. Violence and lawlessness between gangs is rampant.

4. Ciudad Barrios Prison, El Salvador

Ciudad Barrios Prison suffers from the worst conditions imaginable among notorious prisons: overcrowding, disease, violence, gang warfare and abuse by corrupt staff. In recent years, the country has cracked down on gangs, filling El Salvador’s prisons and making conditions even worse for prisoners.

5. Gldani Prison, Georgia

Gldani Prison in Georgia, Caucasus, engages in horrific abuse, rape and torture of prisoners alongside criminal gang members. The prison is overcrowded and there is no medical care, which means diseases are rampant. Riots and protests among prisoners underline the appalling conditions there.

6. Gitarama Central Prison, Rwanda

This is one of the most overcrowded prisons in the world. It was built for 400 people and houses 7,000 prisoners. It is so crowded that prisoners have no place to sit or lie and often have to stand in one place for hours in the stifling heat, surrounded on all sides by other criminals. Some prisoners died of suffocation. Others have had their feet amputated due to diseases contracted from the filthy floors.

7. La Sabeneta Prison, Venezuela

This facility was built to house 700 inmates, but is packed with 3,700 with a 1:150 guard to inmate ratio. Gangs control prison life. Food and other supplies are inadequate for the number of prisoners, leading to a Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ situation. Violence, including murder, among prisoners is a daily occurrence there.

8. Rikers Island, New York, USA

Rikers Island, with approximately 6,000 inmates, is known as one of the deadliest prisons in the world. Violence, abuse and neglect have led to multiple judgments against the city. SWAT are deployed to search cells and seize weapons from inmates, but deaths are still a regular part of life there, leading some to say New York’s most dangerous neighborhoods are safer than Rikers.

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