The following horrifying accounts expose the brutal world of North Korea’s prison camps, where any perceived misstep can land a person in a forced‑labor nightmare.

Horrifying Accounts Unveiled

10 Il

Jeong Kwang-il was a trader who struck deals with South Koreans in China, an act the North Korean law brands as consorting with the enemy. Accused of espionage, he was hauled to a prison camp where interrogators sought a confession through brutal torture. His teeth were shattered, and a heavy blow scarred the back of his head.

The infamous “pigeon torture” was inflicted on him: his hands were cuffed behind his back, the cuffs hoisted him so his feet dangled in the air. He endured this suspended position for days, a pain so intense he thought death would be a mercy. After ten months of relentless torment, he finally confessed to fabricated crimes.

Jeong was shipped to Yodok, one of the largest camps, home to roughly 50,000 inmates. A sign at the gate warned newcomers: “Let’s sacrifice our lives to protect the revolutionary leadership of Dear Leader Kim Jong Il.”

Life in Yodok began at 5 a.m. with a meager bowl of rice, beans, and corn. Prisoners were then forced into grueling labor. In spring, they had to till about 1,170 sq m (12,600 ft²) of field each day, with food cuts for anyone who fell short. Winter work meant hauling massive logs over three kilometres, many dying from accidents or starvation when injured.

Jeong survived three years until a senior guard recognized his wrongful accusation. Upon release, he discovered his home vanished and his family gone. Within a month he escaped North Korea and fled to South Korea.

9 Jihyun Park

Jihyun Park’s father fell ill, prompting her mother to bribe border guards and slip the family across the river into China. A broker promised a decent job, but Park was instead sold as a wife to an alcoholic farmer for 5,000 yuan (≈ $750). She endured six years of slavery, toiling sixteen hours a day, finding solace only in her son, Chol.

When Chol was five, authorities arrested Park and deported her back to North Korea, where she was dumped into a labor camp. Conditions were “unspeakable,” with inmates forced to work like animals. Inmates had to clear hills of trees for planting, and they weren’t allowed shoes. The rough stones broke the skin on Park’s feet, leading to infections and gangrene.

Guards eventually decided they wanted her to “die outside the prison camp,” releasing her. Though her wounds healed slowly, she still walks with a limp. Park escaped to China, reunited with her son, fell in love with another defector, and the three of them secured asylum in Britain.

8 Kang Cheol Hwan

Kang Cheol Hwan’s grandfather was declared a traitor, forcing the entire family into a prison camp. At just ten years old, Kang entered Yodok and saw children so emaciated they looked worse than beggars.

He was promptly sentenced to hard labor, carrying massive logs on his shoulder for miles. If an inmate lagged, guards ordered the rest of the workgroup to beat the sluggish prisoner.

Refusing a guard’s order meant being sent to a “prison within the prison” – a six‑month stint in a tiny cell where detainees were forced to sit in cold, muddy water. Few survived the micro‑prison.

Kang witnessed two soldiers attempt escape; both were captured and hanged. Thousands of prisoners were then ordered to line up, march past the bodies, and throw rocks while shouting “Down with the traitors of the people!” Those who refused to hurl stones were beaten.

After a decade in the camp, Kang’s family was released. Five years later, he and another former prisoner escaped to China and eventually boarded a ship to South Korea.

7 Soon

Kim Young‑soon once danced for Kim Il Sung, the nation’s founding father. One day, secret police summoned her, locked her in a room, and interrogated her for two months about senior party officials. She claimed ignorance, yet she, her four young children, and her parents were hauled to Yodok.

Rations were scarce: prisoners received only small portions of corn and salt. Failure to meet daily work quotas meant reduced rations. Inmates supplemented their diet with anything edible—rats, salamanders, snakes—often eaten raw because there was no time or means to cook.

Malnutrition left everyone weak. Kim watched people “drop down dead every day” and saw most of her family perish. She survived nine harrowing years until a visiting military official, who recognized her brother, secured her release. With forged documents, she crossed into China and eventually reached South Korea.

Later, Kim discovered the reason for her imprisonment: she had once been friends with Sung Hye‑rim, the first wife of Kim Jong Il. Because Sung’s marriage to the leader was scandalous, officials erased anyone who knew her, imprisoning them en masse.

6 Ahn Myong Chol

Ahn Myong Chol spent over a decade as a prison guard. He was trained to treat prisoners as non‑human and was encouraged to kill any inmate who tried to escape.

Guards who killed escapees earned rewards, prompting many to shoot innocent people just to secure college placements. Ahn witnessed a colleague order a prisoner to climb a barbed‑wire fence; the guard shot the prisoner and then left for college.

Violence was sometimes senseless. Two girls tried to retrieve noodles from a polluted pond; a guard kicked them into the water, drowning both. In another horrific episode, three dogs broke loose and attacked five children—three died instantly, and the remaining two were buried alive while the guards petted the dogs and fed them special food as a reward.

Ahn’s own father made a few drunken, negative remarks about the leadership, leading to his family’s detention. Fearing a similar fate, Ahn drove his truck to the shore, swam to China, and later fled to South Korea.

5 Il

Kim Kwang‑Il was starving and resorted to gathering pine nuts to sell across the Chinese border. He was caught, arrested, and accused of smuggling. During interrogation, he was forced into bizarre positions—pretending to ride a motorcycle or be a plane—until he sweated enough to fill a glass placed beneath him.

If a prisoner fainted, interrogators claimed they were faking and made them start over. Overwhelmed, Kim eventually confessed and received a six‑year sentence.

In the camp, he was tasked with moving heavy logs up a mountain without any machinery. The work was perilous; rolling logs crushed inmates, breaking bones. When corpses piled on a cart, prisoners hauled the full cart up the mountain, shoved the bodies into a pot, set it ablaze, and later used the ashes as fertilizer for the fields.

Kim was released after serving 29 months and later managed to escape to South Korea.

4 Jin

Lim Hye‑jin spent seven years as a prison guard. At age 20, two brothers escaped the camp; in retaliation, seven of their family members were beheaded on the spot. The guards then forced prisoners to throw stones at the freshly severed heads.

Lim also observed rampant sexual violence. Guards would rape any female prisoner they chose. Pregnant victims were forced to have abortions; if the pregnancy was advanced, the guards beat the newborns to death or burned them alive.

In one chilling interrogation, a guard grew angry with a female prisoner, stripped her naked, and set her on fire—without any disciplinary consequence. Guards were taught to view prisoners as “just animals.”

Lim herself was caught trading in China, sentenced to a short term, and later forced to parade naked before male guards. She finally fled the country and reached safety in South Korea.

3 Soon Ok Lee

Soon Ok Lee served as director of the Government Supply Office for fourteen years, overseeing food and material distribution. When the North Korean economy stalled, she was scapegoated as the cause of the populace’s starvation. She endured months of torture until she confessed, hoping to protect her husband and son.

After the confession, she and her family were dispatched to a forced‑labor camp. Guards berated prisoners, saying, “You are not human beings. You must think that you are beasts; otherwise you will not survive.”

At the camp, she worked in an ironworks factory under scorching heat, causing her spine to shrink, her back to curve, and her shoulder bones to protrude. A mistake—hiding a faulty shirt—landed her in a tiny “punishment cell” where she could neither stand nor lie down. The ordeal left her unable to walk properly for weeks after release.She endured further beatings with leather straps, head kicks, broken teeth, facial paralysis, and chronic headaches. After seven years, she was freed. A few years later, she and her son escaped to South Korea via China.

2 Hyuk Kim

Hyuk Kim was a homeless 16‑year‑old who trekked to China in search of food. Caught and sentenced to three years, he quickly lost any sense of humanity, describing himself as “like an animal… No thinking. No free will. Just fear.”

His day began at 7 a.m. with a handful of cornmeal and 50‑90 soybeans for breakfast. He labored until noon, received another tiny meal, then returned to work. Dinner arrived at 7:30 p.m., followed by a mandatory memorization of camp rules. A single mis‑spoken word forced the entire team to stay up until they could recite the regulations perfectly. Lights out came around 10 p.m.

Food obsession dominated his thoughts. Occasionally, he caught a rat, skinned it, dried the meat, and ate it raw. Attempting to cook the rats attracted guard attention, resulting in savage beatings.

Some inmates bartered for cigarettes—highly coveted contraband. They scrounged half‑smoked guard butts, reconstituted the tobacco, and fashioned new cigarettes. Getting caught making or smoking these was met with severe beatings.

After eight months, Hyuk was released and escaped to South Korea.

1 A

Ji Hyeon‑A attempted to flee North Korea for China three times, each ending in capture and forced return. The third time, she was pregnant. The regime does not tolerate mixed‑race babies; anyone who becomes pregnant in China is forced to abort. At a local police station, Ji underwent a forced, medication‑free abortion.

She was then sent to a labor camp, where she witnessed the brutal treatment of other pregnant women. Inmates were compelled to perform hard labor, and Ji heard mothers scream at night as they miscarried under the strain.One harrowing incident involved a woman who gave birth after an eight‑hour workday. The joyous moment was cut short when a guard ordered the newborn to be drowned. The mother pleaded, but obeyed the command.

Ji eventually secured her release, escaped North Korea, and was reunited with her family.

Welcome to a whirlwind tour of 10 bizarre cases of prison smuggling, where ingenuity meets desperation behind bars. From feathered couriers to covert syringes, each story shows just how far inmates will go to get contraband into or out of correctional facilities.

10 Bizarre Cases of Prison Smuggling Unveiled

10 Pigeon Phone

In February 2017 guards at a penitentiary in São Paulo’s Franco da Rocha caught a pigeon that was literally strapped with a mobile phone and a battery. The bird was spotted when an inmate tried to snatch it, prompting staff to intervene and discover a tiny pouch clinging to the bird’s body. Officials could not determine who the device was meant for, but the incident highlighted just how creative smugglers can be.

This wasn’t an isolated stunt. Back in September 2016 Colombian prison staff intercepted a pigeon hauling a phone and a USB stick, and in 2015 Costa Rican authorities nabbed a pigeon loaded with 14 grams each of cocaine and marijuana, all tucked into a small pouch. Over the years, prisoners have also turned to cats, iguanas and other unlikely animals to ferry drugs into high‑security facilities.

9 Palestinian Prison Paternity

In 2013 West Bank fertility clinics announced a startling revelation: ten Palestinian women became pregnant thanks to sperm that had been smuggled out of Israeli prisons. “I don’t know how they do it, and I don’t want to know,” said Dr. Salem Abu Kahizaran, who explained that the genetic material traveled in bottles, plastic cups and other makeshift containers. Sperm can survive up to 48 hours under ideal conditions, but many of the samples arrived non‑viable.

Because men convicted of “security offenses” are denied conjugal visits, the clinics focus on childless wives whose husbands are serving lengthy solitary terms. The process requires signatures from two family members on each side before fertilization can occur. Women were encouraged to spread the word about the practice, allowing them to avoid gossip and the stigma that might arise from a seemingly miraculous pregnancy while their spouses remain behind bars.

8 Drone Drop Off

February 2016 saw the BBC report a sharp rise in drone‑delivered contraband. The number of incidents leapt from zero in 2013 to 35 in 2015, with 19 of those drones recovered. Six of the recovered drones carried drugs and more than eight contained mobile phones. The Ministry of Justice also listed five “unknown packages” that officials suspect were drone‑related, though the contents remain a mystery.

To combat the aerial menace, companies like Dedrone have rolled out DroneTracker, a system that can spot drones up to 5,010 metres (16,440 ft) away. Some propose jamming the radio frequencies, though jammers are illegal without special permission. Researchers at Michigan Technological University even built a net‑firing drone to snag rogue aircraft, while the Dutch National Police Agency has taken a more primal approach by training eagles to hunt illegal drones.

7 Fifty Shades Of Misconduct

On November 4, 2014 a British nurse admitted to smuggling a copy of the steamy novel Fifty Shades of Grey to her inmate lover. Kimberly Hinde, a substance‑abuse nurse at HMP Wealstun, had forged a secret relationship with prisoner Lee Stephenson, spending long “consultation” sessions with him. After each meeting she appeared visibly flustered, and a search of Stephenson’s cell uncovered a copy of the book and a series of flirtatious letters.

Initially denying any wrongdoing, Hinde eventually pled guilty to misconduct in a public office. The court noted that while the affair was “overly familiar,” there was no evidence of sexual activity. She received a nine‑month suspended sentence, 200 hours of unpaid work, and was later caught continuing the relationship, even using an alias in her correspondence to avoid detection.

6 Sub Smuggling

January 2017 saw a Florida probation officer, Jerilyn Harris, arrested after she arranged a meeting with inmate Tarvell Douglas under the guise of a hearing. Corrections staff grew suspicious, and an X‑ray of Douglas’s uniform revealed a Publix Italian sub, several pastries and candy concealed inside his clothing.

That same month, a former Chicago police dispatch supervisor became the fifth person charged in a sandwich‑smuggling ring that funneled tobacco, marijuana and alcohol into Cook County Jail. Jason Marek admitted to delivering the contraband, while co‑conspirator Stephanie Lewis testified that her inmate boyfriend Prince Johnson threatened him with personal information if he tried to stop the deliveries.

5 Suitcase Stowaway

In January 2017 a Venezuelan mother, Antoineta Robles Saouda, attempted to smuggle her lover out of Jose Antonio Anzoategui prison by squeezing him into a hot‑pink suitcase. Saouda arrived with her six‑year‑old daughter, hoping to wheel the oversized luggage past the guards. When she struggled with the overpacked case, officers searched it and discovered the 25‑year‑old convict twisted inside, accompanied by his daughter’s toys.

Guards arrested Saouda, placed the child in temporary care, and forced the inmate to climb back into the suitcase for a photo‑op before returning him to his cell. Family visits and overnight stays are common in many Latin‑American prisons, and Saouda’s plan exploited that loophole. Legal proceedings against her remain ongoing.

4 Sperm Syringe

In January 2017 a British prison officer, Alison Sharples, was sentenced to nine months for smuggling the semen of convicted kidnapper Marvin Berkeley out of HMP Garth. A routine search of Sharples’s handbag uncovered a syringe packed with the seed, and investigators also found a letter from Berkeley hidden in her underwear drawer.

The court learned that Sharples had become “besotted” with the inmate, receiving the semen through a tiny opening under the cell door and planning to use a Calpol syringe like a turkey baster. When the affair surfaced on October 23, 2014, Berkeley was only weeks from parole. DNA testing later suggested the sperm could belong to either Marvin or his twin brother Michael, who was incarcerated elsewhere, making the donor’s identity clear.

3 Horror Footage

In February 2017 a secret video was smuggled out of Cameroon’s overcrowded Yaoundé prison and sent anonymously to France 24. Filmed between January 21 and 30, the footage exposed the horrific conditions of Units 8 and 9, colloquially dubbed “Kosovo.” The 2,800‑plus inmates, mostly low‑income thieves, live without proper beds, forced to sleep on the floor, while the prison, built for 1,000, now houses roughly 5,000.

Food rations amount to a half‑bowl per person per day, and three toilets serve over a thousand prisoners in Unit 8. Many inmates relieve themselves wherever they can, and those who cannot pay bribes remain chained at the ankles for weeks, sometimes years. The documentary painted a stark picture of neglect and desperation inside the facility.

2 Keistered Cell Phone

On February 4, 2016 inmate Stephen Cavanagh complained of severe abdominal pain at HMP Manchester. Staff rushed him to the medical wing, suspecting gallstones, and performed an X‑ray. The scan revealed a mobile phone lodged in his rectum, prompting officers to move him to segregation where he was forced to pass the device.

In the United States, correctional officers seized 4,200 phones in 2013—averaging 11 a day. Inmates employ diapers, soup packets, beverage bottles and corrupt guards to sneak phones inside. These devices enable escape planning, intimidation and the continuation of criminal enterprises from behind bars. Notably, two convicted murderers who escaped a Florida panhandle prison left a phone behind, and notorious killer Charles Mason has been caught with phones hidden under his mattress on multiple occasions.

1 Steroid Racket

On November 14, 2015 a corrections officer named Matthew Taylor was sentenced to a year and nine months for conspiring to smuggle anabolic steroids into HMP Oakwood, a British prison. A former Royal Marine, Taylor teamed up with career criminal Michael Clarke, who acted as the liaison between his outside partner Donna Duffus and the inmate. Although the actual shipment never took place—Taylor got cold feet and demanded a larger payment—authorities recorded his phone calls with Duffus, sealing the case.

Taylor pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office and conspiracy to supply a prohibited article, while Clarke received a 30‑month term and Duffus a 12‑month community order for purchasing steroids online. Taylor’s earlier smuggling activities included a £300 deal involving creatine. While exact usage rates remain unknown, many speculate that steroids are rampant in prisons, where physical dominance often translates to power.

In an unrelated note, Geordie McElroy—dubbed the “Indiana Jones of ethnomusicology” by TimeOut.com—has tracked down rare songs for the Smithsonian, Sony Music Group and private collectors, and also fronts the LA‑based band Blackwater Jukebox.

When you think about the 10 ghastly prison practices of the 19th century, you probably picture dark stone walls and grim guards. Most of us are pretty keen on staying out of prison. We have good reason, too. Part of the idea behind imprisonment is to deter criminal offenses. But this wasn’t always the case in Western societies. In the 16th and 17th centuries, a prison existed only as a place to hold offenders before their trial was conducted. Once punishment, be it corporal or capital, was carried out, the prisoner was no longer held. The closest thing to a modern prison was a house of correction, a place to reform beggars and unwed mothers, or a debtors’ prison, a place to keep people until their debts were paid. But in the late 18th century, the prison population of Great Britain exploded.^[1] The Revolutionary War in America cut them off from their prisoner dumping grounds, and it was roughly another decade before Australia’s biggest import became convicts.

10 Ghastly Prison Overview

10 Sanitation

Despite the push to safeguard prisoner health, the squalid conditions persisted long into the Victorian era. Towns and cities were growing at rates that caused huge infrastructure problems in already cramped places like London. The biggest question on everyone’s mind was sanitation as human waste literally filled the streets. The second biggest question on everyone’s mind was how to control the criminal population as they also filled the streets. More people meant more anonymity for criminals, a luxury most were experiencing for the first time. Before the majority of the population started to worry about things like prison reform, they were worried about imprisoning as many criminals as possible as fast as possible. This led, initially, to cramped quarters where prisoners were practically on top of one another with little to no waste removal or clean water.

Outbreaks of typhus ravaged the small holding prisons known as gaols, so thoroughly that it earned the nickname “gaol fever.” A prisoner’s chances of dying doubled when they entered the building. Even though the 19th century brought reform, the prisons built then weren’t much more sanitary. Sing Sing, opened in New York in the 1820s, started off poorly from the very beginning.^[2] Situated in a hollow between the Hudson and a hillside, it was doomed to be damp even when it wasn’t flooding. Prisoners were kept in tiny cells of stale air with a bucket of their own waste in the corner. Worse still, no pipes in the building had a double bend to stop filthy air coming back in, or proper ventilation to let it out. In the winter, when windows were closed, the only air supply came from sewage pipes. Every whiff of air in the place would have been suffused with human filth. Besides being a huge health hazard, it must have been a true olfactory nightmare.

9 Overcrowding

The poor sanitation stemmed directly from the overcrowding in 19th-century prisons. Initially, overpopulation was solved in London by shipping inmates to far-off colonies. But by the 1830s, both Australia and the United States refused to be dumps for Great Britain’s criminals. That was one more thing they didn’t need to worry about while settling new communities and unsettling indigenous peoples. As this form of exile was taken off the table for Great Britain, imprisonment itself was becoming an acceptable form of punishment. As can be imagined, this didn’t help the overcrowding in the least. Ninety new or expanded prisons cropped up between 1842 and 1877.^[3]

Around the mid-Victorian period, two types of prisons had formed. The first was the county and shire gaols, small lockups and houses of correction administered by justices of the peace. The second type of prison was the convict gaol. These were bigger prisons run by the central government in London. They were initially large buildings set into the heart of London but were gradually built more and more near ports. This was because Great Britain had a unique solution to their overcrowding problem that efficiently recycled their earlier system of exile. When prisons on land became too stuffed to fit another inmate, massive decommissioned warships were refitted to house prisoners. They were aptly named “hulks.”

8 Hulks

These huge ships-turned-prisons didn’t disappear when banishing criminals to colonies became impossible. Instead, they evolved into traveling labor camps that operated on much of the same protocol as naval vessels.^[4] Prisoners were not locked in tiny cells but instead were locked in communal decks at night where they slept in hammocks. Inside, they were free to walk around, converse, argue, have sex, and trade illegal goods among themselves. Later on in the operation of many hulks, evening classes where convicts learned to read and write became standard. During the day, the inmates of the warships would be mustered about to bathe, clean the ship, cook, eat, and go ashore to work at the ports. The work would easily qualify as hard labor. Prisoners would unload ships and dredge canals while wearing leg irons.

Given the nightly freedom and the chance to learn new skills, many free men contemplated getting arrested for the opportunity to work on a hulk. Prisoners got three meals a day and sometimes got pay for their work when they were released. However, conditions aboard the ships were not more sanitary than off, and the food was disgusting and monotonous. Breakfast would be toasted bread and a cup of cocoa, and dinner would be 6 ounces of meat with a large helping of bread and potatoes. Fruits and vegetables were rarely part of the plan. The water used to make cocoa and clean off was often pulled up from the Thames, which isn’t exactly known for its sparkling, clean waters. Deaths from cholera and work injuries were common, but officials refused to admit it. The freedom enjoyed by prisoners had its drawbacks as well—being unsupervised in a large deck stuffed with various criminals isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time.

In 1857, the last of the hulks was decommissioned and burned. Originally brought in to help with overcrowding, hulks actually ended up making the problem worse. Many assumed that the hulks would always be there to take on excess prisoners, so jails and prisons on land were often built too small and cramped. Bedford was one prison where the staff had assumed they would always be able to cart local convicts off somewhere. When exile and prison hulks disappeared, the gaol was far too small for the local population.

7 Debt Spirals

Debtors’ prison was a fear somewhere in the mind of every person, poor or wealthy, in the 19th century. These prisons were run for profit and were viewed as an investment by those who built them. Thus, they were run like businesses. Prisoners were given the opportunity to pay for better lodgings and food while working on their debts, but the poorest were forced into damp cells with no windows. These prisoners would often be children or the mentally ill.^[5] Sometimes, entire families would end up in debtors’ prison only to be separated by gender, age, and monetary value. The spread of disease went entirely unchecked, and sanitation was less than a passing daydream. If the debtor was lucky enough to pay back their debts, they would still have to pay off the jailer’s fees.

Yes, being in debtors’ prison meant accruing fees during your stay. On top of paying for better lodging and food if one could, prisoners had to pay even if they couldn’t afford better accommodations. This meant that debtors would be racking up new debts constantly, including the rent on the damp, disease-ridden cells and board for the diet of bread dissolved in water. The jailers weren’t paid by the owner of the jail or the state, so their pay came from fees imposed on the prisoners. This led to a system of corruption in which prisoners were forced to pay for every single service provided, from having food and water delivered to being shackled in irons as punishment. The fees weren’t limited to the debtors’ prison, either. Every prison, gaol, and lockup at the time had a system of fees that ensured the destitute would die in a debtors’ prison.

6 The Separate System

This system came from the United States, where there had been significant debate on the matter of prison reform. There was a prevailing fear that the institutions of society and family were breaking down in the 1820s, which fueled a push toward rehabilitation of convicts. Most thought that criminals were simply lacking in discipline, so the focus shifted to teaching it.^[6] Earlier prison reformers had called for humanitarian efforts to improve the conditions of prisoners. Reformers felt that those efforts had failed to make any change, so harsher methods were needed. The harsher methods that they had in mind were a little like a grown-up time-out. Prisons were reformed so that inmates were forced to sit alone and think about what they’d done.

Proponents of this system felt that criminals had come to their life of crime through wicked influences, so the solution was to limit their influences going forward. Prisoners were isolated from their peers under this system. Other inmates were considered a wicked influence, and officials did their absolute best to limit that influence. Their absolute best was bizarre and dehumanizing. When gathered for exercise, prisoners were forced to wear caps that covered their faces, and they were assigned numbers to replace their names. Prison yards kept long ropes knotted at 4.6-meter (15 ft) intervals. That was how far away from each other they wanted inmates at all times, even when they exercised in silence. The second leg of the separate system was to expose inmates liberally to good influences. In the 19th century, that meant Christianity. Chapel was mandatory, and the only time prisoners were allowed to use their voices was while singing hymns. But even there, inmates weren’t able to sit next to one another. Instead, they were seated in tiny cubicles with a wall between each two inmates. This system, unsurprisingly, led to more than a few cases of insanity, delusions, and suicides.

5 The Silent System

The silent system existed alongside the separate system. Silent system proponents didn’t believe that criminals would be or even could be reformed. Their hope was that prisons could scare potential offenders and scar repeat offenders so much that they would rethink their choices in the future. The assistant director of prisons in the United Kingdom, Sir Edmund du Cane, made a promise to the public that prisoners would get three things during their incarceration: hard bed, hard fare, and hard labor. The usual hammocks prisoners used before were swapped for hard planks of wood with minimal padding, and the food was intentionally bland. Hard labor was the most prominent feature of silent system prisons, and it was mandatory whether or not there was actual work to be done.

The Auburn Prison in New York was a model for the prisons that would adopt this system and eventually became known for its own unique take on it.^[7] The Auburn System, as it was later recognized, involved intentionally breaking a prisoner’s spirit. The sort of striped uniforms you generally only see in costume shops now originated at Auburn as a way to distinguish the prisoners from the guards and humiliate them at the same time. Silence was enforced with a whip, prisoners were marched around in lockstep so that they couldn’t look at each other, and even the prison’s keepers never spoke to prisoners. Instead, they gave orders by tapping their canes on the ground. The work was often considered worse than the whippings. A short day was ten hours, and the work was always monotonous and sometimes even pointless. Eventually, the beatings and whippings were outlawed. The officials at Auburn were quick to replace them with more creative punishments, including ice water showers and tying inmates’ hands to a yoke hung behind the neck.

Auburn was considered wildly successful at the time. The prisoners were well and truly broken by the monotony and silence, so rebellions were few and far between. Prison shops were lucrative, and the profit often covered the upkeep. Prison officials from all over the US and Europe visited to take notes on the system used there. Civilians also flocked to Auburn to observe the silent prison for themselves. The officials quickly started to charge admission fees, which they had to double just to cut down on the number of visitors. This brutal system wasn’t abolished entirely until 1914.

4 The Rotary Prison

The change from keeping prisoners crowded together in larger rooms to keeping every inmate in their own tiny isolation chamber meant that new architecture had to be explored. Early on, in 1791, Jeremy Bentham published plans for the panopticon, a round prison with cells facing inward and a guard tower in the center. It allowed fewer guards to keep an eye on more prisoners at one time, minimizing the chances of escape. Just shy of a century later, the rotary jail was introduced. It was a complete inversion of the panopticon, in that the cells were at the center, and each was shaped like a single slice of a whole pie. As the name “rotary jail” suggests, the cells could be rotated by a hand crank. Only one cell could be opened at a time because the door would need to line up with the opening in the bars. The biggest and most famous of these merry‑go‑round jails was the Pottawattamie County Squirrel Cage Jail in Council Bluffs, Iowa.^[8]

The Squirrel Cage was the perfect example of a rotary jail in every way. A small town population in a rural, lawless stretch of the US didn’t want to pay for a huge conventional jailhouse that would need to be staffed by several jailers in perpetuity. Instead, they opted for one jailer and a massive 45‑ton rotating drum cut up into cells like slices of a layer cake. The town boasted the biggest of the rotary jails, having three levels instead of the usual two. That proved to be one of its biggest problems, and it was the reason that the jail was dubbed a huge failure within the first two years of its existence. The 45‑ton drum balanced precariously on a 0.9‑meter (3 ft) square base that was itself balanced precariously on the bare soil. Whenever the ground shifted under its massive weight, the entire thing would jam and trap inmates in their cells.

But that wasn’t nearly where the problems with the rotary jail started. The tiny spaces and isolation was still driving inmates insane, but things were even more dire when the jail had to pack people two to a cell. Petty criminals were housed right alongside ax murderers. Being trapped in a tiny, wedge‑shaped cell would probably get to anyone, but being literally stuck with a vicious murderer when the drum jammed would easily have been a waking nightmare. Inmates would do anything to get out of the Squirrel Cage. One inmate, Willie Brown, died by eating glass while trying to get a medical transfer to anywhere else. Others stuck their arms or legs through the bars while the rotary jail moved to injure or amputate the limb. Still others reached through the bars in their sleep only to be rudely awakened when the limb was lopped clean off.

With the residents of County Bluffs still reluctant to pay for a proper modern jail, this place existed and ran right up to 1960, when the fire marshal officially shut it down. An inmate had died in a cell, and due to the jammed drum, no one could reach the body for two days. The residents, by the way, still didn’t want to pay for a new jail and just let inmates run free in the building while the jailer watched TV in his office.

3 The Treadmill

Rotary jails were the strange and complicated answer to prisoner isolation and limited resources, but another rotating device would be used to provide never‑ending, monotonous work for inmates under the silent system. The treadmill, now better known as the most boring exercise machine in any gym, once put that mind‑numbing effect to use for torture.^[9] The first treadmills were huge and resembled a StairMaster more than a running machine. It was invented in England in 1818 as a punishment designed to be just shy of death. Famously, the treadmill almost killed Oscar Wilde. He got out of prison weak and lingered just three years before he died. What made the treadmills of the 19th century so different from our own?

Most notably, the shifts were about six to eight hours long. That’s more than ten times the length of a brisk 30‑minute workout. Inmates also didn’t have the luxury of setting their own pace or incline. Each climbed 762 meters (2,500 ft) per hour with no exceptions. That on its own for six to eight hours could have killed, but the prisoners worked the treadmill in pairs. One would climb for two minutes, and then the other would climb while the first rested. Instead of truly resting the prisoners, this seemed to keep them on death’s door without pushing them over the threshold.

The treadmill was initially a literal mill that could grind grain into flour to help support the prison system, but many did nothing at all. This monotony and pointlessness was exactly the aim of the treadmill. Prison guard James Hardie credited the contraption with breaking even the most defiant inmates in New York. He wrote chillingly that it was the machine’s “monotonous steadiness, and not its severity, which constitutes its terror.” Convicts would step off of a shift on the treadmill weakened and vacant, only to go back to their tiny, isolated cells. Despite the glowing reviews from prison staff, American prisons phased the treadmill out in favor of bricklaying, rock‑breaking, and cotton‑picking. The practice was outlawed in England in 1902 once it was noticed that it was extremely cruel.

2 Picking Oakum

Installing a huge building full of stair‑driven mills was pretty expensive. Not every prison could afford to add in a treadmill or a proper shop. But for prisons still looking to make a profit, convicts could be made to pick junk into oakum. “Junk” referred to old ropes coated in waterproof tar that could be teased out into bunches of fiber. The fiber would then be mixed with more tar or even grease to make a waterproofing paste. That paste was used to fill the gaps in the hull of a wooden ship.

Able‑bodied prisoners would have to cut ropes into 0.6‑meter (2 ft) sections and then beat those lengths with a mallet until the tar broke up. Once the tar was shattered, the junk would often be passed along to inmates who were deemed weaker: the elderly, women, and children.^[10] They would be tasked with breaking the rope up into fibers. First, it would be attached to an iron hook that was held between the thighs. Then, inmates would use an iron nail, a scrap of tin, a knife, or, more often than not, their bare hands to break up the fibers. The ropes had to be uncoiled, unraveled, picked apart, and then shredded. Prisoners quickly learned that fingers made the task go fastest but left them with tar‑stained fingers and open, dirty sores. Since oakum had to be traded for food, most opted to suffer the pain rather than starve.

Oakum‑picking was often done in a workhouse, so some prison officials felt it allowed for too much socializing. Inmates often sat in rows under the watchful eye of a warder with a whip. There wasn’t much room for socializing already, but the paranoia of prison officials was hard to calm. Many prisons across England would adopt the treadmill regardless of the expense, and picking oakum would be relegated to women and children. The mass switch to treadmills did happen to coincide with the switch to iron ships. Where wooden ships were made of planks with gaps that needed to be sealed, the new metal ships could be welded shut. The demand for oakum plummeted, and prison staff happened to decide at just that moment that stair‑climbing was more moral than shredding one’s fingers on old rope.

1 The Crank

Some prison administrations felt that having inmates occupy the same space to work the treadmill or pick oakum was far too much mingling. When they wanted to keep them properly isolated, inmates had to do work alone in their cells. But officials had also noticed something they found very interesting: Inmates hated a pointless task more than a meaningful one. This presented them with an obvious solution: the crank.

The crank was literally a crank that stuck out of a small wooden box that was usually set on a table or pedestal in the inmate’s cell. Despite its innocuous description, it was a truly soul‑crushing monstrosity designed to exhaust inmates mentally and physically. Inside the box was a drum or paddle that turned nothing but sand and rocks. The axle on which the crank turned had a screw, which warders could tighten or loosen depending on how much punishment they wanted to mete out or, possibly, their mood that day. The screw would make the crank easier or harder to turn, and warders who came in to adjust it earned themselves the nickname “screws” for the suffering they brought with them.

A prisoner left in isolation with the crank usually didn’t have to worry about a beating if they just ignored the machine. Instead, they could worry about starvation. Each crank had a counter somewhere on the box that kept up with the number of turns. An inmate had to reach a certain number of turns before they were allowed to do basic things like eat and sleep. Most were expected to make at least 10,000 rotations a day—2,000 for breakfast, 3,000 each for lunch and dinner, and 2,000 more before bed. Some prisons would keep the inmate in the isolated crank cell well into the night if they had not completed the number of turns required, meaning that the inmate would miss supper and get very little sleep. The next day, that prisoner would have to operate the crank again while hungry and exhausted. Ultimately, the crank would be outlawed along with the treadmill, but not before it jellied the brains of many a Victorian prisoner.

Renee is an Atlanta‑based graphic designer and writer.

From binge‑watching shows like Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black to watching gritty prison documentaries, you’ve probably formed a mental picture of what inmates can snag behind bars. Yet the reality is far wilder than the typical shower‑shoes‑and‑candy‑bars scenario. Below, we explore the 10 strangest things you can find inside prison, ranging from culinary curiosities to improvised weaponry – and yes, the focus keyword is right here, because we love a good surprise.

10 Strangest Things Inside Prison Walls

10 Baby Clams and Oysters

Believe it or not, some federal facilities actually stock smoked oysters and baby clams on their commissary shelves. These maritime treats are served either as a sophisticated tapas‑style bite or even raw, mirroring culinary trends from around the globe. While oysters are typically reserved for upscale restaurants, here they sit beside canned sardines and salmon, making them a surprisingly upscale indulgence for inmates.

Picture a group of prisoners swapping baby clams for popcorn during a movie night – the aroma alone would raise eyebrows. The notion of oysters lingering in a cell sounds both luxurious and a little off‑putting; the scent could easily become a point of contention among cellmates. Still, the availability of such seafood, even extending to octopus in some locations, suggests that prison fare can sometimes outshine the standard, bland menu.

9 Knitting Needles

It may sound absurd, but several correctional institutions have embraced a program called “Knitting Behind Bars.” Spearheaded by Lynn Zwerling and a dedicated crew of volunteers, this initiative took half a decade to launch and now thrives, offering inmates a calming, creative outlet.

Knitting sessions run for two hours each week, providing participants with a chance to practice etiquette, exchange ideas, and bond with both fellow inmates and the women teaching them. The rules are strict: no cursing, no name‑calling, and a level of decorum that sometimes even leads inmates to skip dinner just to attend. The program’s success highlights how a simple craft can foster rehabilitation and a sense of community.

8 Waist Trimmers

At a particular federal prison, waist trimmers and tummy belts are sold for roughly $10 each. These compression garments promise a slimmer silhouette by squeezing the midsection, though health experts caution that they don’t truly promote weight loss. They’re listed under “recreational items” alongside weight‑lifting gloves and wrist bands, indicating a modest fitness market within the facility.

Given the access to seafood delicacies like baby clams, it’s understandable why some inmates might also seek a way to stay trim. While the trimmers won’t replace a balanced diet, they at least offer a visual boost, and, unlike the non‑existent Spanx offerings, they’re actually available for purchase.

7 Mustache Scissors

In a Georgia jail, prisoners can buy a pair of mustache scissors or a beard trimmer for about $8. Though they may appear as a luxury given the meager wages—ranging from $0.12 to $0.40 per hour—the tools are essential for maintaining personal grooming standards mandated by prison regulations.

Maintaining a neat beard or mustache isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s a rule compliance issue that can prevent violations and avoid conflict with fellow inmates. While the scissors seem modest, they echo the hipster‑culture obsession with grooming accessories, raising questions about safety and the potential for such tools to be misused.

6 Prison Gift Shop

Yes, some prisons operate full‑blown gift shops that cater to tourists and inmates alike. The merchandise mirrors typical souvenir fare: hoodies, keychains, and coffee mugs emblazoned with prison branding. These shops often sit adjacent to facilities notorious for violence, solitary confinement, and other harsh conditions.

For example, Huntsville, Texas, offers shot glasses and tees proudly declaring “Property of Texas Prison System,” while Angola in Louisiana runs a publicly accessible golf course where visitors can purchase golf balls and even “dog collars” that reference the prison’s isolation reputation. The juxtaposition of tourism and incarceration is both bizarre and telling.

5 A Spork (Spoon‑Fork)

Commissaries frequently stock the humble spork, a hybrid utensil that provides a dash of joy amid the monotony of prison meals. While it may seem trivial, the spork’s design offers both a spoon and a fork in one, giving inmates a modest culinary convenience.

Modern facilities are moving away from plastic utensils toward eco‑friendly options like the “Ecotensil,” a sturdy cardboard hybrid that can cut through foods such as tamales or eggs but is virtually impossible to weaponize. Its perforated edges allow it to break down safely if swallowed or flushed, addressing security concerns while still providing a functional tool.

4 Nunchucks

Although you won’t find nunchucks on any official commissary list, one inmate managed to fabricate his own. During a routine workshop, Lorenzo Pollard crafted a pair of makeshift karate sticks from chair legs and linen, turning a simple craft into a daring escape tool.

Pollard’s improvised weapons enabled him to fend off armed guards, shatter a glass window, and leap over multiple wire fences, earning him the nickname “Bruce Lee.” His audacious breakout underscores the lengths some will go when ingenuity meets desperation.

3 Hippy Crack

In 2017, three UK prisoners were caught inhaling nitrous oxide—popularly dubbed “laughing gas” or “hippy crack”—from balloons they filled with canisters. The video footage shows them drifting through various stages of euphoria, with one inmate even losing consciousness.

While nitrous oxide can induce a pleasant high, it also carries serious risks: hallucinations, oxygen deprivation, and potentially lethal outcomes when misused in high doses. The incident highlights how even seemingly harmless substances can become dangerous contraband.

2 Prison Wine (Hooch)

Alcohol has persisted through countless bans and restrictions, and nowhere is its resilience more evident than in prisons, where inmates concoct their own brew—commonly called “pruno” or prison wine. Made from fruit, tea, sugar, and occasionally moldy bread, this illicit liquor has a storied history dating back to the earliest days of incarceration.

Despite its health hazards, prison wine remains a staple of inmate culture, with wardens often acknowledging its presence as an unavoidable facet of prison life. The ingenuity behind pruno showcases the human drive to create comfort even in the most restrictive environments.

1 Bombs

Fine powders, such as powdered coffee creamer, can become explosive under the right conditions—a principle similar to grain silo dust explosions. In the UK, a group of inmates attempted to fashion a bomb using powdered creamer, igniting it during a “teatime experiment” that ultimately failed to fully detonate.

The incident exposed the potential danger of seemingly innocuous items turning into weapons. Though the makeshift device only produced a minor burst, it underscored the need for vigilance regarding contraband that could be weaponized, even when it appears harmless.

Depending on where you are in the world and what you believe about the law, prison is meant to be a punishment, a deterrent, or a rehabilitation. Sometimes it may do all three, sometimes it may do only one and even then just barely. It seems to depend on the sentence and the prisoner in many cases. But that aside, there are some occasions when prison is used as a dramatic statement, often political or perhaps just a moral one. In these cases a sentence is rendered that seems less about what it means to the person getting it than what it might mean for society as a whole. Some of them can be bafflingly long.

10. 141,000 Years for Fraud

Getting into the Guinness Book of World Records seems fun, but not if it’s for getting the longest sentence in the history of prison sentences which is what happened to Chamoy Thipyaso. The Thai business executive was found guilty of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of people. Because of her position in the oil industry and the fact her husband was a high ranking military official, people thought her would-be investment opportunity had military backing and was on the up and up, so over 16,000 invested $204 million.  Even members of the Thai royal family got scammed.

At the end of her trial, Thipyaso was convicted and sentenced to 141,078 years in prison. Remarkable, right? But here’s the thing. Under Thai law, a law passed that same year that she was convicted, there was a sentence cap for fraud and that was 20 years. So the dramatic sentence was essentially just for show and couldn’t really be upheld. Even more egregious was the fact she only served 8 of the potential 20 years, anyway.

9. Terry Nichols Got 161 Life Sentences

A lot of people are sentenced in American courts to life in prison, which is a fairly obtuse term without a lot of meaning that very much involves when and how parole can be offered. Is life for an 18-year-old the same as life for a 90-year-old? And is it the same from state to state? The answer is no. For instance, in Georgia, a person sentenced to life in prison before July 1, 2006 could be eligible for parole after 14 years. But after that date it was 30 years. So is 30 years a life sentence? In many states it’s actually 15 years before parole can be granted. 

To get around that pesky parole issue, judges in the US can do consecutive sentences for crimes and that’s how criminals can end up serving forever and then some behind bars. Take, for instance, Terry Nichols who was convicted of the Oklahoma City Bombing. He was given 161 consecutive sentences, one life sentence without the possibility of parole for each of the people who died in his attack. This was after the death penalty was taken off the table. 

8. James Holmes Got 12 Life Sentences Plus 3,318 Years

James Holmes is the mass murderer who killed 12 people in Aurora, Colorado in 2012 while injuring 70 others. He was given 12 life sentences, one for each of the people he outright murdered, but the judge was not done. Since his intent was to kill everyone, all of the people he injured were cases of attempted murder. And for that, along with charges relating to explosives he used to rig his own home,  he was sentenced to an additional 3,318 years. 

That sentence breaks down to 48 years plus five of parole for each of the attempted murder counts plus 96 years for second degree murders, and six years for the explosives. 

Holmes was nearly sentenced to die but one member of the jury did not agree with the sentence, deciding that mental health issues were a mitigating factor, while two other jurors were on the fence. In the end, Holmes will never see the light of day again as a free man.

7. Bombmaker Abdullah Barghouti Got 67 Life Sentences Plus 5,200 Years

Acts of terrorism will often net the perpetrators longer sentences than a nearly identical crime not deemed to be a terroristic act would get. Abdullah Al-Barghouthi was arrested for his involvement with Hamas, including resurrecting its armed wing which involved making bombs. He was taken into custody by Israeli forces and charged in seven different bombing attacks. 

After a military trial in 2004, Al-Barghouti was sentenced to 67 life sentences that resulted from the 67 deaths and around 500 injuries he was said to have caused. In addition, he was given another 5,200 years.

In 2011 it was reported he’d spent the entirety of his sentence up to that point in solitary confinement with no visitors allowed. 

6. Multiple People Have Been Sentenced to Over 1,000 Years for Drug Trafficking

When it comes to heinous crimes like acts of terrorism, murder and rape it can be a lot easier to understand the outrage that is behind some of these more dramatic sentences. But that’s not exactly what happened to Bentura Flores when he was sentenced back in 1973 for trafficking.

Disproportionate drug sentences are nothing new, of course, and there are ongoing efforts to have people in prison serving sentences for marijuana charges released since the drug is actually legal in a wide number of states already. But Flores was charged with trafficking heroin which, though a much more dangerous drug, still seems questionable since the man only sold $10 worth. 

Despite the minor nature of the offense, Flores was sentenced to 1,800 years in jail. 

In Oklahoma, Larry D. Kiel ended up with 2,501 years for drug trafficking when he was sentenced back in 1992. Part of that sentence included 250 years for possession of a controlled substance without a tax stamp, and another 250 years for maintaining a vehicle where a controlled substance is kept. 

5. Gary Ridgway Got 48 Life Sentences Plus Nearly 500 Years

There’s no such thing as a good serial killer, but some are definitely worse than others. In the United States. Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, is considered the most prolific in history. He pleaded guilty to 48 murders back in 2003 though he claimed to have killed around 80. His admission was part of a plea deal to avoid the death penalty.

A judge gave Ridgway 48 life sentences with no possibility of parole for each of the murders, to be served consecutively. The judge also tacked on an additional 10 years per case for evidence tampering, adding 480 years to the total sentence.

In 2011, a 49th victim was identified. Ridgway admitted to that murder as well and an additional life sentence was added to his total.

4. Brenton Tarrant of the Christchurch Mosque Attack Got 51 Life Sentences 

In 2019, Brenton Tarrant attacked two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand and killed 51 people while injuring dozens more. He was found guilty at trial and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. This may not sound significant to those in the United States for whom life sentences are doled out frequently but in New Zealand a life sentence, a true life sentence in which the accused will never be released again, had never actually been handed down before. Tarrant got the stiffest sentence in the country’s history.

The full sentence, however, was not technically just life in prison for Tarrant. In the judge’s ruling he instead sentences Tarrant to life in prison for each of the 51 murder victims. The judge did not say these were concurrent. He was also given 12 years for each of the 40 cases of attempted murder although this were to be served concurrently rather than consecutively. He was then given an additional life sentence for committing an act of terrorism. So, in effect, he is serving 52 life sentences.

3. Darren Bennalford Anderson Got Over 11,000 Years

Darron Bennalford Anderson may have had one of the worst lawyers in American history to account for his prison sentence. Anderson was tried alongside an accomplice, Allen Wayne McLaurin, for rape back in 1996. The two men were given dramatic sentences, with McLaurin getting the brunt of it at 20,750 years. He was sentenced to 13 consecutive sentences and, though he is eligible for parole, it will only be after the minimum term of each sentence which his lawyers note means he won’t be up for parole until the year 2191, when he’s 224 years old. 

Anderson, unlike his partner, started with the relatively light sentence of a mere 2,200 years. But perhaps his lawyers convinced him that such a sentence was unjust, even in the face of the massive sentence his partner received, so Anderson appealed. Things did not turn out well.

At the appeal the judge agreed that Anderson had been sentenced incorrectly. Instead of 2,200 years, Anderson was given 1,750 years for kidnapping, 2,000 years for each of two counts of first degree rape, 2,000 years each on two more counts, 500 for robbery and 500 for grand larceny. He managed to add just over 9,000 years to his sentence with a grand total of 11,250 years. 

2. Three Men Charged With the 2004 Madrid Train Bombing Got Over 30,000 Years Each

In 2004, a series of bombings in Madrid killed 191 people and injured nearly 2,000 more. Ten bombs hidden in backpacks were hidden on four different commuter trains. There was a vast conspiracy behind the attacks and several terrorist groups were suspected of being involved though that never seemed to pan out during the investigation.

Some of the guilty parties received fairly light sentences of just 23 years, relatively speaking, and some were even acquitted. But not everyone got off so lightly. Three men, convicted of supplying the explosives, were sentenced to thousands of years a piece. One got nearly 43,000 years, another 35,000 years. 

Unfortunately, these were also sentences made for show as Spanish law does not allow such sentences to be carried out. The longest the men can serve is just 40 years. 

1. Charles Scott Robinson Got the Longest Sentence in US History

The longest sentence in the world, as we saw, was a bit of a trick. That sentence could have never truly been enacted and the convicted only served a paltry eight years. Hardly worth a Guinness Record, really. But in the US, for a truly long term sentence that took no mercy on the accused we need to go back to 1994. 

Charles Scott Robinson was already an 8-time felon. He had been convicted of a series of heinous crimes including rape and indecent or lewd acts with a child under 16. His victim was a three-year-old girl. The jury gave him 5,000 years on each of the six counts of which he was convicted. At a bare minimum, he would have gotten 20 years per count, but the jury clearly wanted to send a message. That message was one of anger. Anger over seeing felons convicted again and again only to be back on the streets committing crimes once more. And while surely there’s room to argue that some convicts can be rehabilitated this was clearly not the case with Robinson. 

Robinson’s defense called the sentence a joke and suggested it was more about showing outrage than anything else. He said it was based on an inaccurate perception that most felons weren’t serving enough time, though one imagines he would have been hard pressed to win any sympathy for his client in those particular circumstances.