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- FP Staff
- ADX Florence (Colorado, US) Known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” ADX Florence houses the most dangerous criminals in the United States. Its state-of-the-art technology, supermax design, and limited inmate contact make it an almost impossible fortress to escape.
- Black Dolphin Prison (Russia) Located in Russia, Black Dolphin Prison houses the country’s most violent and high-profile criminals. Its remote location, armed guards, and extensive security systems make it a formidable challenge for any escape attempt.
- Tadmor Prison (Syria) Tadmor Prison, infamous for its brutal conditions, is located in Syria. Its history of human rights abuses and isolation from the outside world create an inhospitable environment that makes escape attempts from this prison an unimaginable ordeal.
- Bang Kwang Central Prison (Thailand) Bang Kwang Central Prison, also known as the “Bangkok Hilton,” has strict security measures that include leg irons, constant surveillance, and limited contact with the outside world.
- The UK's most dangerous prisoners. Big, broad, manic-eyed and bushy-’tached, Charles Bronson is famous (well, okay, infamous) for his big house exploits | Image: Shutterstock.
- The worst prisons in the United States. Parchman Farm has had a reputation as one of America's worst prisons for decades due to insufficient staffing, poor investigative practices and lax contraband controls.
- Exposing Parchman: New documentary reveals a prison 'built for torture' In December 2019, inmates housed in Unit 29 of the max security Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman, began posting videos to social media.
- The most dangerous prisons in the world. When many hardened criminals are herded together and made to share a roof, that building becomes an incredibly perilous place to be…
- 10 Leads Prison Doge’s Palace, Venice, Italy, 1756
- 9 Imrali Prison Sea of Marmara, Turkey, 1975
- 8 Libby Prison Richmond, Virginia, 1864
- 7 The Tower of London England, 1597
- 6 Camp 14 North Korea, 2005
- 5 The Bastille Paris, France, 1465
- 4 La Sante Prison Paris, France, 1986
- 3 Luynnes Prison France, 2001
- 2 Stalag Luft III Poland, 1944
- 1 Alcatraz San Francisco, California, 1962
The Italian adventurer, author, and notorious playboy Giacomo Casanova was once held in the infamous Leads prison for being an affront to religion and common decency. He was placed there following his arrest on July 26, 1755, at the age of 30, but he had no intention of remaining behind bars for very long. After being denied a trial or an explanati...
Back in the 1940s, foreign governments began cracking down on drug smugglersby imposing harsh prison sentences. Billy Hayes was a young American student when he was picked up for smuggling 1.8 kilograms (4 lb) of hashish in Turkey. Two months prior to his release, and after having served nearly four years, he learned that his sentence would be incr...
The Civil Warfought in the United States was infamous for the terrible prison conditions present throughout both the Union and Confederate states. Andersonville in the South was well-known for the indifference it had in treating its prisoners, but nobody succeeded in escaping from that stockade. The same can’t be said for Libby Prison in Richmond, ...
John Gerard was a Jesuit priest who worked covertly during the Elizabethan era due to the persecution placed upon the workers of the Catholic Church at that time. He was notable for being able to elude capture by English authorities for nearly a decade, but he ultimately found his way to the infamous Tower of London, where he was subjected to exten...
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known throughout the world as North Korea, is notorious for being one of the most authoritarian governments on the planet. Because of the structure of the dictatorship, the people have little to no rights, and those who are imprisoned end up in “work camps,” which often amount to death sentences due...
The Bastilleis one of the most infamous prisons in the world. It was famously stormed by a riotous crowd on July 14, 1789, in an event that is still commemorated annually as Bastille Day throughout France. The Bastille was used by the kings of France as a state prison, and it was well-known as being a place nobody could ever escape from. Despite th...
Speaking of inescapable French prisons, La Sante Prison, in the east of the Montparnasse district of Paris, is one of the most infamous prisons in France, and its location puts it right inside the city limits. Since the prison went into use in 1867, there have been three escapes in total. In 1927, one man got out via a false order of release, and i...
It may seem crazy to learn that someone used a helicopterto escape from a prison, but it’s not as rare as you might think. In some cases, it’s simply the modus operandi for inmates like Pascal Puyet, a man who escaped from Lutnes Prison via helicopter and helped others escape twice! Luynnes Prison is a maximum-security facility located in the South...
During World War II, the Luftwaffe ran a prisoner of war (POW) camp in Sagan, Poland, called Stalag Luft III. The camp was used to house POWs captured from Allied countries, with most coming from the United Kingdom. The site was selected due to the presence of sandy soil, which was believed to make tunneling impossible. Despite all the preparations...
Alcatrazis well-known for being inescapable, but that’s not entirely accurate. The prison dealt with a number of escape attempts over the years, but none so infamous as the one that occurred in 1962, when John and Clarence Anglin joined up with Frank Morris to escape. The prisoners fashioned models of their heads with toilet paper, toothpaste, huma...
- The four escapes of Yoshie Shiratori. Japanese gambler Yoshie Shiratori is the worldwide GOAT of prison escapes—but he sucked at staying out of prison. A professional gambler and thief, Shiratori was first imprisoned in 1936 after being accused of murder and robbery.
- Escape via ouija board. In 1918, at the height of World War I, British officer E. H. Jones found himself imprisoned at Yozgad, a POW camp in a remote part of Turkey.
- The Alcatraz escape. Today, Alcatraz is a National Historic Landmark that functions as a tourist attraction, but back when it was a running prison, it was a beast—a seemingly inescapable jail on rocky island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay.
- Timothy Leary’s psychedelic prison break. On January 21, 1970, Harvard-psychologist-turned-LSD-evangelist Timothy Leary was sentenced to twenty years in jail for marijuana possession.
- Inmate flees on tractor. Alright, so the inmate in this story did evade being recaptured, but only for a short time. On the morning of August 7, 2019, Curtis Ray Watson, an inmate at West Tennessee State Penitentiary, was spotted on work detail outside the residence of Debra Johnson, a longtime prison official.
- Three escape from Alcatraz. On June 11, 1962, Frank Morris and the brothers John and Clarence Anglin, three inmates of the Alcatraz maximum-security federal prison located on an island in San Francisco Bay, pulled off one of the “greatest” prison escapes in American history.
- The only New York State prison escapee who’s never been found. On February 6, 1997, Victor Figueroa, a convict serving one to four years for drug possession, was supposed to be on the way to the mess hall when he wandered off from the Moria Shock Incarceration Facility, a minimum-security prison in Mineville, New York.
- Boxed up. Glen Stark Chambers, a convicted murderer originally on death row, was lucky enough to have his sentence commuted to life. But he wasn’t sticking around.
Dec 1, 2021 · The trio fled Alcatraz on June 11, 1962, just a year before the prison would close for good. But their project began months earlier with Morris at the helm. FBI One of the dummy heads left behind by the escapists. A career burglar and armed robber, Morris was one of the smartest inmates in Alcatraz.
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Sep 12, 2023 · The cost in a high-security prison can be double this, and half as much in an open prison. Ease of escape From the 1960s – and for the rest of the century – escapes dominated the prison psyche.
