History Main / HellHolePrison

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'':

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'':

* ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'' has Crematoria, where the (Russian) guards occasionally release mutant dogs to eat anyone who's not quick enough to get out of the way. Oh, and the guards don't bother keeping the prisoners in line. They're up there in their rooms above the prison and never come down. See also the video game example below.

* In ''Manga/PrisonSchool'' the main characters have to spend one month in their highschool's prison for getting caught peeping in the girls' bath. The prison cells are very dirty, the boys have to do a lot of hard labor and their prison guards, members of the school's student council punish them liberally. Despite all this Kiyoshi notes that it's only taken a few days for them to get used to their prison life. They still take their classes, though through a monitor, and they get the same food as the rest of the students. Unfortunately, it goes back to being a HellholePrison after Kiyoshi's breakout as the student council are more strict on the boys and manipulate the boys into getting themselves in trouble so they can be expelled from school.

* ''ComicBook/TheFlash'' has Iron Heights, a [[ExtranormalPrison prison for metahuman criminals]] in Keystone City. Originally it was about as good as you can expect a maximum security facility for superpowered killers to be, but it was turned into this trope by an overzealous warden who had [[FantasticRacism a pathologic hate against metahuman criminals]]. Superpowered convicts are made to wear their costumes inside the prison, are kept locked up in the prisons sub-basement known as "the Pipeline", denied food and water, suffered constant beatings by the guards, and even kept a nuclear-powered villain [[PoweredByAForsakenChild imprisoned in a generator to power the prison.]]

* In "Literature/TheBordersOfInfinity", the Dagoola IV prison camp is designed to be as bad as possible without violating galactic law on the treatment of prisoners of war. Due to egregious LoopholeAbuse, the camp has continuous illumination, {{Prison Riot}}s twice daily over food distribution, frequent PrisonRape and non-existant medical care.

* ''Literature/SixOfCrows'' has Hellgate. It's right in the name. The prison also has the Hellshow, where prisoners are forced to fight each other and wild animals in order to gain priviliges.

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'': Connor gets thrown into one complete with asshole guards and the occasional tortured scream, and an architecture that's somewhat reminescent of ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises''' pit. The PrisonShip HMS Jersey also plays a minor part in the game.

* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'': If [[CruelPlayerCharacterGod the player wants it]], then his Jails will be essentialy this trope.

** [[TheAlcatraz The Purgatory]] prison ship is a mercenary-run ProtectionRacket, which governments only tacitly recognize, much less held to any humanitarian stndards. Needless to say, the inmates suffer terrible living conditions and abuse from guards. It's hard not to feel bad for the prisoners, even though killing 20 people and destroying a habitat is apparently at the ''low'' end of the crimes that can land you there.

** In ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare 2'', [=TF141=] breaks into one to kidnap the prisoner inside for information on Makarov. The entire gulag exists to punish one guy: [[spoiler: Captain Price.]]
** In ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyAdvancedWarfare Advanced Warfare]]'', The [[spoiler: Atlas]] Prison Camp in the level Captured is a high-tech example of this. As you and your captured team are marched through, you witness guards in PoweredArmor tossing around and beating up prisoners, executing prisoners in a trench by the mass, prisoners locked up in tiny metal boxes they can't even stand up in or chained to a post to bake in the hot desert sun, and even worse, [[spoiler: subjecting prisoners to gruesome medical experimentation against their will for Atlas's superweapon Manticore.]] Needless to say, this is practically [[MoralEventHorizon an errant violation of]] [[UsefulNotes/TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar the Geneva Convention and Nuremberg Code,]] but since [[spoiler: Atlas is a {{Private Military Contractor}}]] and it's leader the [[BigBad Big Bad]], they can almost get away with it. [[spoiler: Provided that the world hasn't caught on to Atlas's ulterior motives until the 2nd half of the campaign.]]
* ''Franchise/TheChroniclesOfRiddick: VideoGame/EscapeFromButcherBay'': The game takes place in the eponymous maximum security prison, housing the most notorious criminals in the galaxy. It's divided into three levels, each one more hellish than the previous: the first level is pretty much a "normal" prison (although madness-inducingly horrible and violent), the second is a series of tunnels infested by murderous alien bugs where the prisoners must mine for precious ores under terrible conditions, and in the last (saved only for the very worst of the worst) the prisoners are simply [[CryoPrison kept frozen in cryostasis for the rest of their lives]] (except for a two minutes long exercise period per day in an ''extremely'' well secured area).

* ''[[VideoGame/MaxPayne Max Payne-3]]'' has the abandoned Imperial Palace Hotel. The level deals with the titular hero infiltrating the hotel and finding [[spoiler: several imprisoned and beaten favela residents, that were rounded up by an [[PoliceBrutality overly aggressive]] {{SWAT Team}} who then [[DirtyCop sold off some of the captives]] to a paramilitary organization that [[OrganTheft profited from selling their organs on the black market.]]]]
** In a later level, Max infiltrates a police station run by the UFE, the conditions are filthy and there's a cell with a hung prison that makes [[ParanoiaFuel one wonder exactly]] [[DrivenToSuicide how he]] [[SuicideNotMurder died.]]

* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'': The Dungeon maps feature charming little things like cages, torture racks and iron maidens. Not to mention the skeletons that are still chained up on the wall...

* ''Series/{{Andor}}'': The Imperial prison that [[spoiler:Cassian]] ends up in on the moon Narkina 5 is a hellish and soul-crushing place where the prisoners are kept in line with brutal electric torture and threats of death while being used as slave labor by the Empire to build parts for military vehicles. To give you an idea of how bad it is there, one prisoner is shown [[DrivenToSuicide deliberately letting himself get electrocuted to death rather then stay inside any longer]].

* Any foreign prison in ''Series/BangedUpAbroad'' is guaranteed to be this.
* "The Attic" on ''Series/{{Dollhouse}}''.

* ''Series/{{JAG}}'': The Chinese military prison in "The Prisoner".

* ''ComicBook/TheFlash'' has Iron Heights, a [[ExtranormalPrison prison for metahuman criminals]] in Keystone City. Originally it was about as good as you can expect a maximum security facility for superpowered killers to be, but it was turned into this trope by an overzealous warden who had [[FantasticRacism a pathologic hate against metahuman criminals]]. Superpowered convicts are made to wear their costumes inside the prison, are kept locked up in the prisons sub-basement known as "the Pipeline", denied food and water, suffered constant beatings by the guards, and even kept a [[ILoveNuclearPower nuclear-powered]] villain [[PoweredByAForsakenChild imprisoned in a generator to power the prison.]]

* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'': Connor gets thrown into one complete with asshole guards and the occasional tortured scream, and an architecture that's somewhat reminescent of ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises''' pit. The PrisonShip HMS Jersey (see Real Life section) also plays a minor part in the game.

* ''VideoGame/PrisonArchitect'': As players are given the ability to build their own prison, one such prison can be achieved, though it can lead to massive consequences in-game.

** [[TheAlcatraz the Purgatory]] prison ship is only tacitly recognized as a prison by any governments, as it's actually a ProtectionRacket that threatens to unleash its prisoners if not paid. Needless to say, the inmates suffer terrible living conditions and abuse from guards. It's hard not to feel bad for the prisoners, even though killing 20 people and destroying a habitat is apparently at the ''low'' end of the crimes that can land you there.

* ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'': Zaeed Massani states that Batarian prisons are hellholes where the only choices are "bash head open against wall" or "kill everyone between yourself and exit". [[TheAlcatraz The Purgatory]] prison ship also qualifies, given the inmates' poor living conditions and abuse from guards. It's bad enough that it's hard not to feel bad for the prisoners, even though killing 20 people and destroying a habitat is apparently at the ''low'' end of the crimes that can land you there.

[[folder:Film]]

Story-wise, this sort of prison will often get heroes thrown into it, so that the hero can demonstrate their inherent hero-ness by refusing to be defeated by the prison, often because they were either framed for a crime or because they are an enemy of the ruling dictatorship. It may also serve to [[PrisonsAreGymnasiums toughen them up]] for the next part of the plot (since pretty much any story with a prison as a setting involves a GreatEscape as the plot). Other times, it will just serve as a FateWorseThanDeath which the hero must fight to avoid.

Alternatively, especially in the future settings, the prison might not be a barbaric pit where only the strongest survive and where the guards turn a blind eye to the criminal control. Instead, it will be a {{Dystopia}}n Panopticon where [[BigBrotherIsWatching every action is monitored]], any step out of line is equated with an attempt to escape and punished accordingly, and there is one, if not several, MadScientist(s) who regard the prisoners as nothing more than guinea pigs for their [[PlayingWithSyringes immoral experiments]]. Of course, the worst of prisons might well mix and match the elements outlined above, resulting in something like a Nazi concentration camp turned UpToEleven.

* ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClankFutureToolsOfDestruction'': Zordoom Prison, run by [[TheEmperor Emperor Tachyon]]. People can be thrown in for slightest disobedience to his authority (and making fun of his EmbarrassingFirstName or [[TheNapoleon stature]] actually warrants a ''death penalty''), the pardons are extremely few and far between, the prison announcer mentions torture chambers and sensory deprivation tanks, the guards are numerous, sadistic, and armed to the teeth... overall, it's considered to be [[UpToEleven the worst prison in the universe]].

A prison like this will often also be TheAlcatraz or a TailorMadePrison, but those are defined by the difficulty of escape rather than the conditions — some of those prisons can actually be [[LuxuryPrisonSuite quite nice]]. Related to BedlamHouse.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Here are [[https://youtu.be/iTEywmm60kY the 10 examples of brutal prison]] by WebVideo/MatthewSantoro.
* When Cubans attempted to fight for independence from Spain in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Years%27_War Ten Years' War]], Spanish authorities responded by (among other things) creating the first facilities to be called "concentration camps". Enormous numbers of Cubans were forcibly relocated (or "reconcentrated") by the Spanish military into small areas. The results were predictable: many people suffered from the overcrowded conditions, poor sanitation and lack of rations.
** But it was during the Cuban War of Independence that the camps would truly become notorious. Under the orders of General Valeriano Weyler, countless Cuban civilians were forced into "reconcentrados", were as many as 400,000 may have died. These tactics sparked outrage in the United States, and were a contributing factor in the Spanish-American War.
* The Confederate [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andersonville_National_Historic_Site Andersonville]] POW camp during [[UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar the U.S. Civil War]]. There were two reasons Andersonville was so bad; one, the utter lack of supplies on the Confederate side (they barely had enough to feed their own soldiers, let alone the other side's prisoners) is understandable. However, the other reason is that the commandant of the camp, Captain Henry Wirz, went beyond being an ObstructiveBureaucrat (which you might expect with limited supplies) and engaged in very high-level jerkassery. While it was true the Confederate Army had difficulty providing rations for prisoners, Captain Wirz would not even let the prisoners have the full measure of the rations that he did have on hand. The prisoners were also not allowed to build shelters or collect firewood and were instead required to sleep in ditches covered by tarps. This wasn't a resource problem: Andersonville was built in a ''forest'', so wood was one of the few things ''not'' in short supply. He also denied the prisoners access to fresh water (one of the other things not in short supply; his men had plenty), and gave them no utensils to cook what few rations he did hand out. And these were only the most general problems.
** To give an idea of how bad the treatment of prisoners was at Andersonville, Wirz was the ''only'' Confederate officer executed for war crimes after the fighting was over.
** The Union equivalent was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Douglas_(Chicago) Camp Douglas]]. Inadequate shelter and unsanitary conditions led to many prisoners suffering the effects of cold, disease and malnutrition. Some commmanders retaliated against escape attempts and Confederate abuse of Union prisoners by depriving the inmates of things like warm clothing.
* [[UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust Nazi prisons and concentration camps]], as one can ''very'' well imagine, are among the most notorious examples of this trope. They top most other examples on this page in that the majority were built with the ''explicit purpose'' of [[FinalSolution killing as many prisoners as possible]], either by direct extermination or through slave labor and malnutrition.
* [[UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan WWII era Japanese]] [=POW=] camps were infamous for [[DeniedFoodAsPunishment starving]], [[ColdBloodedTorture torturing]], and [[MadeASlave enslaving]] Allied prisoners.
** [[PlayingWithSyringes Unit 731]] in Manchuria added an extra level of horror for anyone rounded up by the [[StateSec Kenpeitai]], with prisoners of all ages and ethnicities subjected to medical torture by IJA personnel, including vivisections without anesthetic, being thrown into pressure chambers, and getting infected with bubonic plague or anthrax en masse.
** Camp O’Donnell in the Philippines which was nicknamed the “Camp O’Death” by the American and Filipino POW’s who arrived after having to endure the Battan Death March. The camp was built for a capacity of 10,000 men but the IJA crammed the 60,000 men who survived the march in to the camp and without surprise the conditions were appalling as many men suffered from starvation, lack of food, lack of water or contaminated water malnutrition, dysentery, malaria and beriberi. The barracks were dirty, overcrowded and didn’t have proper roofing which exposed the prisoners to all elements, bathrooms recently built latrines along side the camp and the waste of prisoners were filled up to the top which attracted rats, flies and other bugs and vermin because of the extremely unsanitary problems and that’s not even getting into the nightmare that was the prison hospitals of both Americans and Filipinos in which both were rife with all kinds of filth and diseases from dying prisoners, lack of proper medical care and an uncaring attitude from Japanese officials. The hospitals were declared “Ground Zero” because they were for men with zero hope. Close to 30,000 men died in the camp.
** The infamous Battan Death March was the beginning of the suffering for the exhausted and starving POW’s. The joint group of American and Filipino soldiers surrendered to the Japanese as took the city of of Battan on April 9th, 1942. General Douglas McArthur told the men not to surrender under any circumstances but Major General Edward King defied the order to avoid a slaughter as his men didn’t have the strength or the numbers to keep fighting and not to mention many of the men were dealing with malnutrition do to half-rations from lack of food and tropical diseases and illnesses from being station deep in the Filipino Jungles due to a lack of medical supplies. More than 76,000 American and Filipino soldiers laid down their arms throughout the city. The Japanese wasn’t expecting to take on a large number of POW’s (they thought they would have to transport 30,000) and they didn’t have food, water or resources to feed all of them nor the vehicles to transport that many men, so the decision from the Japanese Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma was to march the prisoners to Camp O’Donnell. General King wanting to spare the men the long trek, offered to General Homma to drive the men in American trucks to the camp but Homma curtly refused. Needless to say the march was hell on earth for the battle worn American and Filipino soldiers as the Japanese soldiers stripped them of their dignity and hope with viscous and out of nowhere beatings, they were deprived of food and water in the grueling 100+ degree tropical heat with the sun beaming down on their backs. Many were beaten, shot, bayoneted or beheaded for not being able to march at a steady pace, straggling away from the group, trying to escape and for begging their merciless captors for food, water or bathroom breaks as bathroom breaks were few and far between and many of the men had to defect and urinate on themselves, which caused infections to the wounds on their legs from the brutal marching. They also were subjected to torture by being forced to stand in the direct sunlight, which many of the soldiers called the “sunbathe” which drained whatever energy and strength the men had and some prisoners had their ring fingers chopped off by the Japanese who took their rings and other personal possessions. Several of the prisoners were so thirst-crazed that they drank water out of wallow pits and ditches that was contaminated with animal waste. The murky and waste filled water caused dysentery for most of the men and without surprise many of them succumbed to their illnesses. There’s also the 45 mile train ride the soldiers took in which they crammed into old outdated box cars with no ventilation, sitting space or food and water and just like the march? There was nowhere to use the bathroom and many of the prisoners had to go on themselves. Several men died from the uncomfortable conditions, wounds and illnesses and after they completed the discomfortable ride? They had to go an extra 8 to 10 miles to get to the dreaded prison camp in which conditions of course which was even worse.....
** The main reason why the Japanese Soldiers were so brutal to their POW’s is because they believed that surrender was dishonorable and contemptible and anybody who became a prisoner of war was not worthy of humanity and that they were subhuman and that they deserved to be treated with utter inhumanity. The other reason is that the Japanese were annoyed and angered with the American and Filipinos for fighting to the very end during the Battle of Battan and that it took way longer to capture the city than they thought.
* Jasenovac, and other camps run by the [[UsefulNotes/{{Croatia}} Ustashe regime]] managed to [[EvenEvilHasStandards shock visiting Nazis]] who wanted to see how their Balkan allies were dealing with their own undesirables. Because the Croatian fascists were far less equipped with industrial methods to organizing the killings compared to their German counterparts, their own genocide against the Jews and Serbs was a ridiculous torture-fest and slaughterhouse [[UpToEleven even by World War II standards]]. To start with, the majority of prisoners were killed by ''throat-slitting'' with knives or with other simple tools like hammers and saws. Plus, the Nazis at least had the sense to kill their victims before [[ManOnFire shoving them into ovens]].
* British prisons before Sir UsefulNotes/RobertPeel. You used to have to pay for everything and could often bribe the Gaolers to make life harder for other prisoners. Part of this was due to the fact that these payments (both official and bribes) where the only money the Gaolers made. London was infamous for Newgate until the end of the 19th century (though it was used to hold only the very worst prisoners for the 50 years). Numerous references to it used the phrase (or something very near to) "Hell on Earth" to describe it, Rioters on numerous occasions made it a point to burn the place down first off, and even official reports criticized it for harsh prisoner treatment and malnourishment. It was eventually demolished and replaced with the Central Criminal Court -- a.k.a. the Old Bailey -- in 1902.
* The StanfordPrisonExperiment appeared to demonstrate that ''any'' prison has the potential to turn into this: guards, if not held accountable for their actions, become abusive; prisoners, lacking other means of fighting back, become passive-aggressive and prone to riots. The results of the study are still controversial among researchers, however; with claims that flaws in the construction of the project encouraged much worse results than would be achived in a real-world setting.
* Israeli politician and human rights activist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natan_Sharansky Natan Sharansky]] says that when he was confined by the [[UsefulNotes/MoscowCentre KGB]], they were deliberately trying to wear down his [[HonorBeforeReason spirit]] with endless amounts of ColdBloodedTorture. Most KGB torturers didn't actually enjoy their work and used methods which showed little of the [[Film/ThePrincessBride six fingered man]] type "craftsmanship" but much of brutality, with beatings being the most common. Nor did they want information. All they wanted was to inflict enough pain to make him shut up and stop being [[LaResistance embarrassing]] to the regime.
* Soviet-era prisons, particularly the Gulag, are described as this by many former inmates; most famously by Creator/AleksandrSolzhenitsyn in ''Literature/TheGulagArchipelago''.
* China's ''Laogai'' [[note]]reform through labor[[/note]] system, has been most commonly seen as this. Various estimates have been made, including by former inmate Harry Wu, claiming that this prison and labor system has caused tens of millions of deaths. To a lesser extent, the similar ''Laojiao'' [[note]]re-education through labor[[/note]] system was also described as this.
* Cuba's prisons also count as they treat prisoners as punching bags. It was so terrible that the prisoners transferred to Atlanta prison did everything they can not to be sent back into Cuba.
* UsefulNotes/NorthKorea's ''kwan-li-so'' system of labour camps and political prisons deserves a mention of its own. [[http://freekorea.us/camps/ North Korean]] defectors have reported witnessing forced abortions, infanticide, several instances of rape, public executions, and ''testing of biological weapons on prisoners''. Inmates face ColdBloodedTorture as a daily fact of life simply ForTheEvulz.
** Keep in mind that most of the people in these prisons are guilty of crimes varying from speaking out against the government, listening to South Korean radio, violating military discipline[[note]]in layman's terms - "We have nothing on you, but you just got a one-way ticket to a KangarooCourt and subsequent death in the gulags"[[/note]] or even being ''related'' to someone who was accused of a crime ("related" here meaning ''everyone'' in your family up to two generations up/down each; if you commit a crime and get sentenced to prison, then your parents, ''their'' parents, your aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins and all your children and maybe grand-children get sentenced too). [[ParanoiaFuel Absolutely anyone]], regardless of social status or rank, can go to these prison camps in North Korea, and in some cases (especially including the aforementioned relation/military discipline policies), ''[[BewilderingPunishment they have absolutely no idea why]]''.
* Communist Yugoslavia had a notorious "re-education" camp at Goli otok. The name literally means "barren island" and it is very accurate - it's an uninhabited, mostly barren rock, meaning there's little shade during the scorching summers, and it's usually miserably cold and windy in winter, while being almost impossible to escape. The camp was opened after the Tito-Stalin split, to "re-educate" real and perceived Stalinists (merely voicing a positive opinion of the Soviet Union was often enough to be labelled as such) and bring them back into the fold. While the camp was not particularly deadly (only 413 of over 16,000 prisoners perished, mostly of typhus), inmates were subjected to hard labour, terrible living conditions, and had to beat each other. But the worst bit was the psychological degradation they had to suffer, such as being forced to admit they had committed vile crimes (including bestiality), betrayed the Party and their homeland etc. Conditions were so bad that even a delegation of StateSec leaders was appalled, and ordered the management to improve them. After Stalin's death and the thawing of Yugoslav-Soviet relations, the camp lost its political connotations and was transformed into a high-security prison for ordinary criminals, but maintained its infamous reputation.
* Supermaxes. [[GoMadFromTheIsolation Just the solitary confinement can break prisoners]].
* Whether or not the American detention center at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is one of this is a hotly contested issue.
* Likewise, Sheriff Joe Arpaio's "Tent City" is frequently said to be this. It gets pretty hot outside in the Arizona summer...
** This was no accident, either. Arpaio openly ''bragged'' about making the conditions in Maricopa County detention facilities particularly awful, supposedly because he believed it would deter crime (although some opponents came to believe that he just [[{{Sadist}} liked making people suffer]]). How bad was it? Federal courts have ruled on at least two occasions that the conditions of MCSO jails violate inmates' civil rights (of special note is the Madison Street Jail, which is advertised as the toughest jail in the United States).
* While prison in any country in the Middle East and North Africa is no picnic, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tazmamart Tazmamart]] prison camp in UsefulNotes/{{Morocco}} was noted as the most hellish prison in the world -- at a time when the Soviet Gulags were still active. It was shut down in 1991.
* Many if not most French prisons have gradually become these due to a frozen prison budget, lack of funding for new prisons, and a burgeoning prison population. Overcrowding is commonplace, there is a violent and endemic gang culture, and (''hotly'' denied by both wardens and the government) much abuse of prisoners (by guards and fellow prisoners, inclusive of sex slavery). This goes a long way towards explaining the disdain and/or hostility many ordinary French people have for the police, especially among certain minority groups.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palacio_de_Lecumberri Lecumberri Black Palace]] was this in 20th century Mexico. Built to hold 800 men, it typically held 4-5 times that and averaged over a hundred inmates murdered per year.
* In medieval times many castles tend to have horrible dungeons underneath them. Some prisons are just pits where the prisoners are dumped to, with no way out, or even any source of light.
** According to the romanticized castle studies of the 19th century, oubliettes (or "bottle dungeons") were as close to a literal example of this trope as possible: a tiny hole in the ground, with the only light coming from a barred window in the ceiling, where the prisoners were handed their food (when the guards felt like it). Not only was the space cramped and filthy beyond measure, there was also no place for the human waste to drain off. In reality, archaeological evidence points to the far less horrifying (but far less memorable) explanation that at least some were merely basements used for storage.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_State_Penitentiary Eastern State Penitentiary]] in UsefulNotes/{{Philadelphia}}. As stated by one of its visitors, Creator/CharlesDickens, "the slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain" there were "immeasurably worse than any torture of the body." It was originally supposed to be a more humane form of incarceration, but this high-minded goal eventually proved to be unattainable in the way that the planners intended. Today, it's a museum most of the year--except at night in late October, when it's one of the spookiest [[HauntedHouse haunted houses]] in America.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Salim Abu Salim prison]] in UsefulNotes/{{Libya}} during the rule of UsefulNotes/MuammarGaddafi. At one point, the prisoners rose up, demanding a decent standard of living. [[DisproportionateRetribution In response, the administrators marched out 1,270 inmates into the courtyard, where they were all shot and killed]].
* During UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution, the PrisonShip [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Jersey_%281736%29 HMS Jersey]] earned the nickname "Hell" for its inhumane conditions and high death rate.
* While ''technically'' not a prison, the Africans suffered this in the triangular trade slave ships. There was a cruel system meant to imprison them to keep them from rioting or commiting suicide. [[SincerityMode Don't look into this unless you have a strong stomach]]. [[spoiler:The journeys were long and up to hundreds of captured African men, women and children were packed into the bottom of the ship, all chained together, in uncomfortable all-fours positions. There was no place for them to relieve themselves, so they had to let their waste out on the floors. They had to eat and sleep in that too. If the ride got too rocky, or if it got really cold, then they'd be vomiting on each other. Unsurprisingly, illness and death was abundant due to this, and dead slaves were simply tossed overboard, though the others were ''sometimes'' allowed on deck to mourn. And if rations were running low, then the ship's crew tied rocks to the weak, ill or old and threw them overboard. And if they refused any of the food they were offered? The crew had their ''throats cut open and force fed them through a tube''.]]
* Before the 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement, which bought an higher involvement in the prison from [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCourts Federal judges]], prisons in the DeepSouth such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parchman Parchman]], [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angola_Prison Angola]] (nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the South") [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cummins_Unit Cummins]] or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_Unit Tucker]] among the most notorious, could be very difficult, with beatings, torture, [[PrisonRape rape]] and, in some cases, flat-out murder from the few guards or their [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusty_system_(prison) trustee comvicts]] influcted on convicts submitted to [[WorkingOnTheChainGang forced work]].
** The Tucker and Cummins State Prison Farms [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Murton#Prison_scandal were notorious]] for submitting convicts to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_telephone electrical torture]], rape and racket from "trusties", and they were rumors of murders on convicts who didn't obeyed the trusties; around 200 convicts were reported "shot while trying to escape" and [[FridgeHorror a mass grave of 200 bodies was found nearby]].
** Angola is notable because it was amalgamated out of cotton plantations that had been using convict labor even before the state of Louisiana assumed control. Conditions remained unchanged through the 1930s, with no appreciable difference between being imprisoned at Angola and being enslaved on an antebellum plantation. Although there were repeated efforts to reform it, it remained infamously brutal through at least the 1970s.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Island Cayenne]], more commonly known as Devil's Island, was a French PenalColony off the coast of French Guiana which, until 1938, "welcomed" French convicts who were either persistent offenders or [[UsefulNotes/FrenchCourts sentenced to hard labour]] (the remaining inmates returning in 1953); the climate, beatings, malnutrition, lack of rations, solitary confinement and the conditions in which was effectied the labour was such this prison was nicknamed the ''guillotine sèche'', or "dry guillotine."
** A death rate of 75 percent backed up the nickname and you had 40 to 80 percent of the prisoners who died in the first year out. The other factors of death came from numerous tropical diseases, dangerous animals in the jungle, insects carrying all types of deadly diseases, piranha and cayman infested rivers and the ocean which was infested with sharks.
** And then you have the long ship ride the prisoners had to take to get to the island (which took 15 days to get from France to French Guiana) in which they were packed in tight quarters like slaves with very little air, food and water, there was only a few hammocks to sleep in and the ones who didn’t have one had to sleep on the steel floors and the prisoners were allowed on deck for only half an hour a day for any type of fresh air. Several died before even arriving to French Guiana due to fevers, sickness malnutrition and of course brutal fights amongst each other due to the uncomfortable conditions.
* Any prison with a sizable gang population can become one of these (even ones that wouldn't nominally count) for someone not in a gang, simply because gang activity can involve anything from illegal drug trades (and all the nastiness that goes along with it) to fights over the most trivial things, up to and including full-scale war that can leave people dead, even officers. Not being in a gang in these places carries a huge risk of, among other things, being extorted or caught up in a fight with no one to turn to, and you can't always rely on the guards to help you out. What's worse, the "politics" of most gangs, at least in North America, decree that [[ButThouMust you must jump into a fight involving fellow gang members]] lest something happen to you. In fact, gang activity is one of the main drivers of the existence of supermax facilities, which attempt to gimp their ability to operate by isolating their leaders, but this rarely works since they find ways to beat the system anyway.
* New Norfolk, in Tasmania, intended for convicts who, while in [[SentencedToDownUnder Australia]], commited ''another'' offense, was so awful that, in 1835, when the Bishop Ullathorne went to assist convicts awaiting execution and that, during his stay, news of reprieve for some men came in, the ones to be happy were the ones ''not'' to be commuted.
** The {{Prison Ship}}s taking them there were equally awful, with such an appalling death-rate that it became a scandal even in Victorian England. Parliament eventually solved the problem by only paying the owners of the chartered ships half up-front, and only paying the remaining half of the fare for prisoners who arrived alive.
* A news story about certain Iranian prisons caused much outrage about the handling of the prisoners; apart from ubiquous beatings and torture, the prison cells were barely taller than the average person and only slightly wider (and only as deep) as a locker you might remember from school, with only a few small air holes. Inmates were stated to have been kept in these locker cells often for days at a time, and if they misbehaved in any way at all, things could get even worse.
* During [[UsefulNotes/NationalReorganizationProcess Argentina's last military dictatorship]], the Navy Mechanics' School did not earn the nickname "the Argentine Auschwitz" for nothing. Not that any other place where [[UnPerson disappeared]] [[{{Dehumanization}} "subversive elements"]] were thrown into any better.
* Upon putting down a revolt of the Hereo and Mamaqua peoples in the German Southwest Africa (modern day Namibia) in 1904, the [[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany Imperial German troops stationed there]] decided that the best way prevent future rebellions was by hunting down and exterminating any remaining Herero and Namqua people who fled into the Namib desert, as well as denying them access to the watering holes. Later that year, [[OlderThanTheyThink any Hereo or Namqua people that managed to survive were rounded up and thrown into concentration camps]], with the one set up in Shark Island being the most infamous. Inmates there were denied food, beatings were frequent, many died of exhaustion, and because disease was rampant, it allowed medical researchers to go in and perform numerous experiments on how to treat such ailments; if the infected inmate died, they conducted an autopsy to see what happened.
* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hole_of_Calcutta Black Hole Of Calcutta]]. At one time, it was just an ordinaty prison cell, but it became a notorious example of this trope after the events of June 20th, 1756, when ''dozens'' of men were forced into this single cell that measured just 14 feet by 18 feet -- ample room for one or two prisoners, but nowhere near enough for the number who were forced to share the space.[[note]]The common narrative, which appears to stem from one highly-publicized survivor account, is that as many as ''146'' prisoners were crammed into this tiny space; historians believe (based on other survivor accounts and military records) that the real number was likely closer to 60, but that was still far too many for a cell that size.[[/note]] Suffice to say, very few were left alive the next morning.
* While initially built as a regular prison to replace Alcatraz, the Marion Illinois Federal Penitentiary became this when, following the murder of 2 guards in 1983, it went into lockdown...permanently. Prisoners were held in their cells for up to 23 hours a day in small cells with a simple concrete bed, a sink, a black and white television, and a small radio, only allowed out for an hour of exercise and a shower (twice a week, being led to the shower in a mobile cage), and no contact with other inmates was allowed. The lockdown was finally lifted in 2006.
* Its successor the Administrative Maximum Security Prison Florence Colorado (also known as ADX Florence) deserves mention. Known as "the Alcatraz of the Rockies" and described by a former warden as "A clean version of hell", inmates are held in small cells containing a concrete bed with a thin mattress, and concrete desk and stool, a shower (with a timer to prevent flooding) a black-and-white television that shows educational and religious programming and a small radio. Prisoners are let out of their cells for an hour of exercise in small enclosed outdoor spaces. Food is dispensed through little openings in the cell doors and inmates are not allowed to have any communication with other prisoners. There's even an area where inmates never leave their cells. The prison mostly holds terrorists, some foreign (like the shoe bomber and the WTC bombing conspirators), others domestic (such as Terry Nichols, Ted "The Unabomber" Kaczynski and Eric "Olympic Bomber" Rudolph, who has become an unofficial spokesman for inmates and described it as being a place to inflict misery). Other prisoners have included organized crime figures like the late Philadelphia mob boss Nicki Scarfo (who was also in the Marion Prison) and former Sinaloa Drug Cartel head Chapo Guzman, as well as prisoners from other prisons who were especially troublesome or severe escape risks.
* The [[https://allthatsinteresting.com/worst-prisons/3 Bang Kwang Central Prison]] in Bangkok, Thailand, known as the "Bangkok Hilton" and the "Big Tiger", is one of the most notorious prisons on Earth. New inmates are required to wear shackles for the first three months that they are incarcerated there, and inmates sent to death row often had their shackles ''welded'' to them (though this practice ended in 2013). Originally built to house 3,000 inmates, it now houses more than 8,000, and conditions in the prison are harsh.
* Antananarivo Prison in Madagascar, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACfKHjUmg_o&ab_channel=FreeDocumentary as shown in this documentary]]. In short, this prison is extremely underfunded and overcrowded: cell blocks are stuffed full of men who have to sleep on the floor packed next to one another, and can only turn around when directed. It's unsanitary and infested with rats and fleas carrying ThePlague. The only thing the prison gives the inmates to eat is Cassava roots, and anything else must be brought in by visitors or else smuggled in. Its isolation cells are referred to (often through hushed whispers) as "the Hellhole," as they are bare stone boxes without toilets or running water and inmates are forced to sleep in their own waste and that of previous inmates. There's also a women's block which is only slightly better on account of being less crowded, although still overcrowded, and their children are with them too. It's not even easy to be a guard here, since they're forced to use outdated and broken-down equipment and weapons, there's no computers so everything has to be written down and cataloged by hand, and even the head guard makes less than a typical BurgerFool employee in the United States due to how poor Madagascar is.
* La Gorgona Island in Colombia was turned into a PenalColony in 1959. Molded after the Nazi concentration camps, conditions for the prisoners were utterly abysmal with them being forced to sleep on beds without mattresses or pillows. The "bathrooms", meanwhile, were nothing but a hole in the floor. Rapes and murders from other prisoners and abuse from guards were a common theme in the prison, and that’s not even getting into the many inmates that died due to tropical diseases and venomous snakes due to the prison being located DEEP into the island jungle with escape being next to impossible due to the 30 kilometers of water between the island and the mainland being full of sharks. The prison was closed in 1984 and turned into a tourist attraction by the Colombian Government.
* During the Second Boer War, Herbert Kitchener ordered that Boer (and some black African) civilians be imprisoned in concentration camps in order to deprive enemy guerillas the ability to melt back into the population. Sanitation was terrible and rations were meager, so over 26,000 of those interned died of hunger and malnutrition.
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* Regarding discouragement: Any colonists who aren't officially psychopaths will get mood negatives from prisoners dying, being organ harvested, being unjustly executed, or [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs dying from having vital organs removed]] and releasing prisoners alive and well gets major positive relation boosts with their home faction and [[GoodFeelsGood a positive mood for your colonists]]. Or to mix things, heal them up and keep their bits attached for the best slave price.

* The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hole_of_Calcutta Black Hole Of Calcutta]]: a room measuring 14 feet by 18 feet into which ''dozens'' of prisoners were forced on the night of June 20th, 1756.[[note]]The common narrative, which appears to stem from one highly-publicized survivor account, is that as many as ''146'' prisoners were crammed into this tiny space; historians believe (based on other survivor accounts and military records) that the real number was likely closer to 60, but that was still far too many for a cell that size.[[/note]] Suffice to say, very few were left alive the next morning.

* ''Videogame/{{Rimworld}}:'' Given the fact you can take prisoners and actually ''need'' a prison to keep them in, given [[VideogameCrueltyPotential the kind of game it is]] hellholes were inevitable, though it's encouraged to have a pleasant prison for faster recruiting. Either way, they go from the neglectful and hurried "sleep on the floor in the middle of a bunch of workshops" sort to truly horrible torments where they lock you up in a cramped dark room, feed you with the other prisoners that didn't make it, and probably [[OrganTheft steal your organs]]. With mods involved, you can force them to do your menial chores, too.

* Furnace Prison from ''Literature/EscapeFromFurnace''.

* In ''Literature/TheHandmaidsTale'', people that Gilead's [[TheTheocracy society]] considers to be [[UnPerson "undesirable"]] (including, but not limited to, [[BuryYourGays gays and lesbians]], feminists (even those of the non-StrawFeminist variety), [[BuryYourDisabled people with disabilities]], and [[BabyFactory Handmaids]] who have failed to conceive or who give birth to a deformed or disabled child) are sent to work camps, where their task is to clean up radioactive sludge with no protective equipment. Unsuprisingly, most who are sent there do not survive.

* ''Film/TheArcher'': The reform camp is staffed by sadistic guards and a warden (who is also keeping girls there for money), not to mention very harsh punishments if they commit any infractions.

* While ''technically'' not a prison, we had the Africans in the triangular trade slave ships. There was a cruel system meant to imprison them to keep them from rioting or commiting suicide. [[SincerityMode Don't look into this unless you have a strong stomach]]. [[spoiler:The journeys were long and up to hundreds of captured African men, women and children were packed into the bottom of the ship, all chained together, in uncomfortable all-fours positions. There was no place for them to relieve themselves, so they had to let their waste out on the floors. They had to eat and sleep in that too. If the ride got too rocky, or if it got really cold, then they'd be vomiting on each other. Unsurprisingly, illness and death was abundant due to this, and dead slaves were simply tossed overboard, though the others were ''sometimes'' allowed on deck to mourn. And if rations were running low, then the ship's crew tied rocks to the weak, ill or old and threw them overboard. And if they refused any of the food they were offered? The crew had their ''throats cut open and force fed them through a tube''.]]