Hello and welcome back to the Most Amazing Top 10 Channel on the internet.
I am your host Rebecca Felgate and today we are talking about the Top 10 Isolated Prisons
that Shouldn’t Exist!
Often prison geography is such that those in charge want to keep dangerous criminals
away from the rest of society.
Are these prisons too much and is enough done to ensure people who aren’t guilty aren’t
sentenced for crimes they didn’t commit and are forced to live desolate and dismal
lives.
A couple of the prisons on this list are no longer functioning jails but still exist as
buildings with dark histories.
As you watch this video I want you to think about which of these prisons scares you the
most and you would least like to be imprisoned in.
Let me know in the comments section down below.
Also – thumbs up etc.
10 - Alcatraz Often referred to as the Island of Evil, Alcatraz
is one of the most famous prisons in the world, known for being one of the first modern-day
maximum-security prisons.
The island of Alcatraz is in the middle of San Francisco Bay in California, United States.
Some of America’s most ruthless criminals called Alcatraz home, include the notorious
gangster Al Capone.
The prison was known for being brutal Being able to see San Francisco so near yet so far
across the water must have been a huge temptation for prisoners.
None the less, Alcatraz claimed to be inescapable in its time as a max prison, which ended in
1963.
Despite 14 attempts, it is thought that no prisoners ever manage to successfully get
out alive – the cold water and strong currents made that neigh on impossible…and then,
there were the rumours of sharks.
Inmates in this facility have reportedly been made to walk naked on Dog leashes in the freezing
cold, at number 9 we have the Spring Creek Correctional Center
So this prison is in Alaska, already a far flung state of the USA.
Some parts of Alaska are reasonably populated, but this prison is amid 328 acres of national
park.
The inmates here will likely spend the rest of their lives in prison, unlikely ever to
feel warm climes again.
The dog leash incident came in 2013 and In 2015, a hysterical woman approached the prison
with a gun and demanded the prisoners be freed.
Guards refused and she shot herself in the head in front of them.
The prison is said to at times have no running water.
8 - The Mamertine, Italy Luckily this prison is no longer in use, but
when it was it was a total and utter abomination and one of the scariest isolated prisons around
- the romans were savage.
A lot of isolated prisons are on rocks on islands… but this was below ground, which
terrifies me.
Sentencing people to a life without human interaction or sunlight, the Romans built
this prison in 614 BC…which is an insane amount of time ago.
The building is still standing though and if you wanted to you could visit the place
that, according to legend, saints Peter and Paul were imprisoned.
7 - Robben Island Robben Island is infamous for being the prison
that held South African President Nelson Mandela for over 18 years of his life.
The prison was founded off the coast of Cape Town by Dutch Settlers in the 1970s.
The penal isle has been home to many prisoners over the years and all survivors who have
discussed their treatment have said that the prison was grueling.
In Mandela’s autobiography, he said he was welcome by a prison guard who told him that
he would die on the island.
He also said that he and other prisoners were forced to work in a lime quarry and the relentless
glare from the sun caused them permanent eye damage.
Mandela spent his time in a 6 square foot cell – not only was he isolated from the
mainland of South Africa, he was mostly isolated from other prisoners in a tiny space.
How he stayed sane is another testimony to his character.
Prior to Mandela’s time incarcerated there, the island was a place where people were banished
and exiled – the rocks and choppy water made sure that swimming to freedom wasn’t
not an option.
Countless people drowned in their attempts.
The brutal prison closed in 1999 and now, nearing 20s years on, you can visit the island
as a cultural heritage site.
6 - Guantanamo Bay Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp is staying open
for the foreseeable future – Trump signed and order to keep it that way.
Gunatanamo was opened in 2002 by George W Bush as part of his War on Terror.
The detention camp is in a far flung part of Cuba and is surrounded by ocean on one
side and waste land on another.
The most terrifying thing is that within Guantanamo, US government agents and soldiers can do what
they want to prisoners without worrying about the law.
The operations in Guantanamo Bay detention camp are considered a major breach of human
rights by Amnesty International as the inmates are detained indefinitely without trial.
People have died here, some by suicide, and minors have been detained.
It is a scary, desolate, isolated and inescapable place.
If you ever wind up here, you had better hope you are guilty of the crime you are accused
of… as you’ll be treated as if you are…but you wont be treated like a human.
Often referred to as The Alcatraz of the Rockies, 5 - ADX Super Max
ADX Max is a max security facility in the Colarado mountains and, like Alcatraz, holds
some of the worst criminals in America.
Currently residing here is the surviving Boston Marathon Bomber, as is the Oklahoma City bomber,
as well as a FBI agent who became a soviet spy – basically some of the people most
hated by the American Government.
One former inmate, a Black Power militant called Travis Dusenbury, was locked up there
for ten years and said – I quote I've been locked up in some isolated, rural places,
but at least at those places I could always see a highway, see the sky.
ut at the ADX, you can't see nothing, not a highway out in the distance, not the sky.
You know the minute you get there you won't see any of that, not for years and years.You're
just shut off the world.
You feel it.
It sinks in, this dread feeling.
It seems in ADX prisoners are locked in the cells, already in the middle of nowhere, and
are allowed out for two hours a day, 5 days a week.
Oh, we have a Gulag at number 4 Penal Colony 56
Penal Colony 56 is one of the most remote and impenetrable prisons in the world, let
alone Russia.
Sometimes also known as the Black Eagle Penal Colony, the prison is a max security institution
specifically for murderers.
Penal Colony 56 is home to 260 killers who between them are thought to have extinguished
800 lives.
Maybe this prison should exist, as that is pretty absolutely terrifying.
The Gulag is 7 hours from civilization deep in the middle of a forest.
In the Winter, temperatures drop to minus 40 degrees Celsius, which to be honest I have
experienced in Canada, but I live in a cozy home and have a cozy coat.
This place is no picnic, conditions are harsh and inmates are kept inside 23 hours a day,
with just one hour to walk in a roofless room.
3 - Nauru Regional Processing Centre According to Amnesty International and the
souls who have managed to get free of Nauru, this refugee centre on an Australian owned
Island nearest Papua New Guinea is a prison.
Australia has a process for mandatory detention if people living there do not have visas – if
you are found without a valid visa in Australia there is a strong chance you could be exiled
to Nauru and have to live amid squalid conditions that you are not allowed to leave.
This is also the place Asylum seekers are sent, some of which are genuine refugees who
have escaped war, only to find themselves in a far-flung detention centre.
The island is in a remote part of the pacific ocean and those stuck in the centre have no
choice but await their fate.
According to a news article on the Al Jazeera website, the residents are stuck with insufficient
shelter, little food and safe water and that some of the detainees have suffered sexual
abuse in the centre.
Often referred to as the Alcatraz or Russia, we have Petak Island Prison at number 2
Petak Island Prison is in the middle of a lake in a far-flung part of Russia.
This Russian Gulag is home to some of Russia’s scariest and most notorious killers – not
just murderers, but cannibals and pedophiles, too.
The regime in this prison is so tough, and the conditions are so bleak, that inmates
are known to completely break down.
The only way in or out of the prison is by boat or on foot over two shaky wooden bridges…it
is kind of medieval.
Oh, and the whole lake is surrounded by watchtower so even if you managed to get out, you would
wither be drowned or shot.
Security is so tight that nobody in living memory has ever escaped.
The Prison Psychologist said: This place destroys people.
The first nine months or so they spend adapting.
After three or four years their personalities begin to deteriorate.
Finally coming in to number one…
1 - Camp 22 Camp 22 in North Korea is probably as close
to hell on earth as it gets.
North Korea is already a hermit nation, but Campy 22 is a new kind of remote – it is
in a remote region called Hoeryong in the far North of Korea near China.
This maximum security prison is actually very much a concentration camp and is completely
isolated from the rest of the world.
Three lucky souls have managed to escape, but how far they got, we don’t know.
From what we know of Camp 22, it contains prisoners of war.
Rumour has it that inmates are deprived of food and forced to eat frogs or rats to survive.
In the day, prisoners have to perform hard labour.
Prisoners are only allowed one set of clothes which they will live in and die in – by
which time they are nothing more than rags.
Guards patrol with rifles and dogs, and there is also a high 3,300 volt electric fence.
WELL that was intense wasn’t it!