- 3 days ago
When people search for prisons with the worst conditions, they are often looking for more than sensational headlines. They want to understand how overcrowding, violence, poor sanitation, inadequate food, lack of medical care, and systemic neglect create environments that are difficult to survive. In some facilities, the daily reality for inmates is shaped by severe deprivation rather than rehabilitation. These conditions can affect mental health, physical safety, and the possibility of any meaningful reform.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00All over the world, different kinds of prisons are built to hold criminals of different categories,
00:04and each prison has its own set of rules and methods to keep these criminals in check.
00:09While some prisons manage to keep prisoners in check while providing them with tolerable living conditions,
00:14others are known to be hell on earth, with inmates being forced to face extreme torture and starvation.
00:19In this video, I will be revealing the dark side of prison life by doing a deep dive into prisons
00:24with the worst conditions.
00:25Black Dolphin Prison, Russia
00:27The Black Dolphin Prison, formerly known as NKVD Prison No. 2, is one of the oldest prisons in Russia,
00:33located close to Russia's border with Kazakhstan.
00:35The prison's unique name was derived from a dolphin sculpture at its entrance.
00:39Legend has it that the dolphin was constructed by prisoners who would enjoy the company of nature
00:43while sitting on the grass at the prison's entrance.
00:46In the beginning, Black Dolphin was a jail reserved for people sentenced to life with hard labor,
00:50but after the Pugachev's rebellion in 1773, the prison was upgraded to also confine robbers.
00:55In the recent past, Black Dolphin Prison has morphed into a dreaded place used for the confinement of the country's
01:01worst criminals,
01:02including serial killers, terrorists, murderers, cannibals, and people who commit crimes against children.
01:07The security measures in this prison are top-notch, which makes it nearly impossible for inmates to escape.
01:11Seeing how it is a prison that holds the worst of the worst criminals,
01:15it's easy to see why extra miles have been put in place to ensure these criminals don't make their way
01:19back into society.
01:20Each inmate is isolated in a cell that is protected with a set of three steel doors.
01:25Each cell is equipped with a camera for 24-hour surveillance.
01:29This enables authorized officials to monitor events in the prison at all times.
01:33From the time they wake up in the morning until bedtime,
01:35the inmates are forced to remain standing and are not allowed to sit or rest on their bunks.
01:40Prison guards make rounds every 15 minutes to supervise the inmates and make sure they are following the rules.
01:45Inmates are locked in their cells for most part of the day.
01:48They are only allowed to exercise in a large cage for 90 minutes a day.
01:51During this exercise period, each cell is searched for illegal items and weapons.
01:56Inmates are only allowed to possess books, newspapers, and a radio.
01:59Anything other than that is considered illegal.
02:01There is minimal interaction between inmates at Black Dolphin as there is no cafeteria in the prison.
02:07Prisoners are fed four times a day in their cells and their meals are made up of soup and bread.
02:11Black Dolphin uses a unique method for moving inmates from one point to another within the facility.
02:16First, the inmates are blindfolded by prison guards to ensure that they do not have a full layout of the
02:21prison to enable planned escapes.
02:23Next, inmates are made to bend over at the waist with their hands handcuffed to the back.
02:27The guards hold on to the cuffs to guide the inmates to their destination.
02:30This method is done to deprive the inmates from getting a proper view of their surroundings,
02:34as well as prevent them from attacking the guards or other inmates.
02:37Another thing peculiar to Black Dolphin is the fact that the inmates are forced to respond with
02:42yes sir when interacting with prison guards.
02:44A notable prisoner of Black Dolphin is the German actress Carol Neva, who died in jail in 1942.
02:50Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, Kenya.
02:52Prisons in Kenya are generally known for their inhumane living conditions however.
02:56Kamiti Prison, located in Roisambu constituency, is regarded as the worst of them all.
03:01The prison was built to contain 1,400 prisoners, but it now holds well over 3,600 inmates, which is
03:07more than twice the population it was built for.
03:10The overcrowding in the prison has caused a serious deterioration in the health of many inmates.
03:14The spread of serious diseases and illnesses like gonorrhea, syphilis, tuberculosis, dysentery and HIV is
03:20very common in Kamiti due to the unsanitary environment. Prisoners have to live in dilapidated
03:25buildings and jam-packed cells with a constant lack of basic sanitary requirements. The living
03:30condition is made worse by a constant lack of water as there is no reliable source of water within the
03:35prison. About 200 prisoners are forced to haul buckets of water every day to at least keep themselves
03:40clean. Some sections of the prison are particularly popular for the kind of brutality that exists there.
03:45The G Block is a section filled with sexual predators who prey on the weak for their pleasure.
03:49It is possible that these predators are able to get away with their nefarious activities due to
03:54the overpopulation in the prison. The Kamiti Prison became famous for another reason in November 2008
03:59when a search carried out uncovered a shocking fact about the prisoners. It was discovered that
04:04the inmates in Block A of the prison have been operating what could be called an illegal call center.
04:09It turned out that many of the inmates were in possession of cell phones which were used for
04:13large-scale scamming schemes. The phones were of a particular brand made with a special
04:17voice changing function that enabled these criminals to alter their voice when calling
04:21unsuspecting victims feigning to be women or children in need. They would even go as far as
04:26faking accents to make their victims believe the lies they were being told. The inmates would then
04:31proceed to form a relationship with the victim and keep up with the charade until they successfully
04:36managed to extort money from the person. When they were not making calls, inmates would send dubious
04:41text messages to many Kenyans waiting for an unlucky person who would take the bait. Other times,
04:46inmates would call people and claim to be calling from the local radio and somehow convince the
04:50person to give out their ATM information. There are rumors that these criminals were
04:54being aided by some warders who collected a share of the scam money the inmates made.
04:58Warders helping inmates in their illegal business goes to explain the prevalence of the scams in
05:02prison. Dozens of Kenyans have fallen victim to these elaborate scams, losing their life savings to
05:07hardened criminals who could not be stopped by prison bars. Kamiti Prison made the headlines once again in
05:13November 2009 when eight prisoners died from a cholera outbreak. In 2021, news had it that three
05:19inmates escaped from the prison and seven warders were later apprehended for aiding their escape.
05:24Terre Haute, USA. The United States Penitentiary Terre Haute is a high-security federal prison
05:29designated for male inmates. USP Terre Haute is built with multi-security levels which consist of
05:34maximum security, medium security and low security units. In July 1993, USP Terre Haute was assigned by the
05:41federal government to be the site where inmates on federal death sentences would be executed. A few
05:46years later, the prison was upgraded to contain the special confinement unit where the death row
05:50inmates are held before execution. In 1999, all male federal death row inmates were transferred from
05:56other federal and state prisons to USP Terre Haute. The federal government chose the prison as the
06:01federal death row center for men because of its central location in the country, although they have
06:05been condemned to death. Inmates. At USP Terre Haute are allowed to work at UNICOR, a prison-based
06:11industry that produces towels and other accessories for the military. Each inmate could earn up to six
06:15to twelve dollars daily. However, the conditions in which these men are confined have been the subject
06:20of debate worldwide. In 2008, the ACLU accused USP Terre Haute of having inadequate living conditions
06:26at the special confinement unit. The ACLU claimed that the death row inmates were not given adequate medical and
06:32mental health services. They also claimed that inmates had to deal with incessant noise, which is
06:36the cause of sleep deprivation. In Terre Haute, inmates are locked individually in small cells and
06:42spend most of their time alone, but they have the opportunity to speak to one another through the front
06:46of their cells. They are allowed to leave their cells three times a week for exercise and recreation,
06:51but these have to be done in a cage and not in the open. There is a high restriction of
06:55communication
06:56between inmates and the outside world. Inmates get only seven visit days per month. Every mail they receive
07:01is screened, copied and evaluated before they are handed over. Yet another communication restriction
07:06is that all inmates are mandated to speak English during every conversation. Since its inception,
07:11Terre Haute has witnessed the execution of 16 men, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
07:16Currently, the prison holds notable criminals like Jokar Tsarnaev, aka the Boston bomber, whose death
07:22sentence was recently reinstated and is now awaiting execution. Despite the harsh conditions the inmates have to
07:27face, it is important to mention that USP Terre Haute was the first federal prison to consider providing
07:32psychological and psychiatric treatments for inmates. It is also one of the few prisons where
07:37prisoners are referred to by their names instead of numbers. In 2021, Terre Haute recorded the highest
07:42number of COVID-19 cases among other federal prisons. About 281 inmates tested positive for the virus,
07:48including death row inmates in isolation. About 14 out of 50 death row inmates were infected, which
07:53probably meant that they contacted the virus from the prison staff. Sam Quentin, USA.
07:58San Quentin prison is the oldest prison in California and was built due to an increase in crime
08:02rate in San Francisco. From 1848 to 1852, the state witnessed an influx of fortune seekers, who in turn
08:09brought about an increase in crime. As more criminals were arrested, the city jail reached its limit and even
08:14became so overpopulated to the point that some prisoners were kept on a ship for a brief period before
08:19the government decided to build a prison. The San Quentin prison was built to originally hold 250
08:24prisoners, but that number was easily exceeded in a short period. The prison was originally handed over
08:29to private investors who won the contract to run the facility. These people were to maintain the prison
08:34and in return, they were allowed to hire out the inmates to various companies. But as time passed, the
08:39prison was being mismanaged and prisoners were subjected to harsh living conditions. Inmates were treated
08:44in the most inhumane ways and had to face brutal punishments like flogging and being sprayed with water
08:49high pressure hose. At some point, the security in the prison was so bad that more than 80 prisoners
08:54escaped in one year, which led the government to forcefully reclaim management of the prison.
08:58San Quentin has been home to criminals of all sorts, including Sirhan Sirhan, the man who
09:03assassinated Robert F. Kennedy. It is the death row center for men sentenced to death in California,
09:08while women facing capital punishment are held at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla.
09:13The San Quentin death row is segmented into three sections, the first being the North Segregation,
09:18reserved for inmates who are compliant and are not prone to causing trouble. Next is the East Block,
09:22which basically holds the most number of death row inmates. And then there is the adjustment center.
09:28This section holds the worst of the worst criminals who have to be handled differently from the others.
09:32As of December 2015, the San Quentin death row has held over 700 male inmates, making it the largest
09:38death row facility in the United States. In 2001, the prison's death row was regarded as the largest in
09:44Western Hemisphere. And in 2005, it was called the most populous execution antechamber in the United
09:50States. It is also home to the only gas chamber in California. Three years after the state's governor
09:56put an end to capital punishment in the state, San Quentin's death row began the shutting down
10:00process in early 2022. All death row inmates are being relocated to normal cells.
10:05Diyarbakir, Turkey. The Diyarbakir prison in Turkey was established in 1980 by the Ministry of Justice.
10:11However, control of the prison was handed over to the military administration after the September 12th,
10:161980 Turkish coup d'etat. Under the military administration, Diyarbakir became a martial law
10:21military prison known for doling out some of the worst kinds of punishment. The Diyarbakir prison was
10:26built to contain 744 inmates. But as the years passed, the prison became overcrowded. And by 1996,
10:32it was holding 942 prisoners. Between 1981 and 1984, prisoners were made to endure horrible and
10:39inhumane torture in addition to overcrowding. This period is popularly known as the period of
10:43barbarity, or the hell of Diyarbakir. Prison guards were given permission to strip the inmates, beat them,
10:48and pull their hair without mercy. Sometimes the inmates would be blindfolded, stripped, and given
10:53water baths using high-pressure hoses. The prison used long-term solitary confinement as a method of
10:58torture, with guards constantly insulting and dishing out death threats to inmates. The
11:02prison's captain, Captain Isat Octay Yildiren, had a German shepherd dog called Joe, and every
11:07inmate was obligated to salute the dog. They had no choice but to salute the animal as it had been
11:11trained to bite the private parts of erring prisoners. The many forms of torture used include
11:16depriving inmates of sleep, as well as water and food deprivation for long periods. Sometimes the
11:21guards would flog the inmates on the soles of their feet, or hang them up by their arms. Other times
11:25they
11:25were forced to keep standing for long periods, or to do strenuous exercises in very unfriendly
11:30temperatures. Other torture techniques used include asphyxiation, sexual humiliation, crushing of limbs
11:36and genitals, and forcing naked prisoners to lie on top of each other. Electric shocks to the genitals,
11:41burning flesh with cigarettes, and pulling out nails and healthy teeth of inmates were also rampant.
11:45The guards had been given absolute control and did not hesitate to unleash hell on earth. Inmates were
11:50sometimes forced by guards to urinate on each other, and in other instances the guards would go as far
11:54as raping or threatening to rape inmates even in the presence of their relatives. During the period
11:59of barbarity, it was normal for prison guards to use various terms like disco, welcome, theater,
12:04and bathroom as some sort of code names for different torture techniques. The term disco was
12:09used whenever an inmate was made to take a bath in the prison sewer. A former inmate who spent 11
12:14years
12:14in the prison stated that every new prisoner was welcomed by Captain Esat at the gate. The captain would
12:19then instruct the guards to prepare the new prisoner a bath and then take him to the dormitory. What the
12:23prisoner wouldn't know is that he was about to get a welcoming taste of torture. The guards would
12:27start by beating him up before dragging him to a bathtub filled with human waste. They would then
12:32leave him there for the next few hours. Prisoner torture in Diyarbakir was so much that 34 inmates
12:37lost their lives due to torture during the period of barbarity. Diyarbakir is regarded as one of the most
12:43notorious prisons in the world, but in 2021 the Turkish president announced plans to turn it into a
12:48cultural center. Mendoza prison, Argentina. Mendoza prison in Argentina is plagued with overpopulation
12:55as it is currently holding three times its original capacity. Overcrowding is a common problem with
12:59prisons in Argentina. However, Mendoza prison is the worst of them all. Many prisoners in Argentina
13:04live in devastating conditions due to overpopulation. This has often led to prison riots and violent
13:10attacks between prisoners, which results in an increasing number of deaths. In Mendoza,
13:15five inmates are packed into a tiny cell that measures 43 square feet. Aside from being packed,
13:20there are not enough mattresses for the inmates, which means that they have to sleep on the cold
13:24floor. The state of Mendoza prison was brought to light in 2005, when Amnesty International reported
13:30the condition of prisoners there. They noted that the prison's sewage system was in a terrible
13:35condition, which forced the inmates to make use of plastic bags and bottles whenever they wanted to
13:40ease their bowels. With the sewage system in shambles, it is safe to say that inmates at Mendoza
13:44are at risk of contracting numerous illnesses associated with contamination and poor hygiene.
13:50Their condition is worsened by the fact that the prison only calls for doctors and nurses after an
13:54inmate has died. The inmates do not have medical records and do not get medical care unless the
13:59case is deemed critical. There is a scarcity of medicine in the prison and inmates who necessarily
14:03need to see a doctor have to go through extraordinary lengths like cutting themselves to get medical
14:08attention. When the doctors finally come, they are not allowed into the prison wings. Amnesty International
14:13also reported that the prison guards would often beat the prisoners every time they searched the
14:17cells for illegal items. The beating would increase whenever the guards are trying to maintain
14:21discipline among inmates. There were also reports that 14 prisoners between the ages of 18 and 21
14:26decided to protest the maltreatment they were facing by sewing up their lips for a few days,
14:31sewing their lips to get the government's attention shows how much suffering the prisoners in Mendoza
14:36are going through. According to the Argentine constitution, prisons are meant to be clean,
14:40safe and healthy. In general, prisons are set up to focus on rehabilitation and not castigation.
14:45However, the case is different with prisoners at Mendoza as the few people who make it out alive
14:49leave the prison in worse conditions than when they went in. Apart from the aforementioned problems,
14:54Mendoza also stands out due to the fact that many inmates there have not yet been tried and
14:58sentenced. Despite the fact that they are yet to be pronounced guilty, these inmates have no choice
15:03but to suffer the inhumane conditions, hoping to one day make it out. In addition to their
15:07horrifying findings, Amnesty International is also concerned by the fact that since the year 2000,
15:13dozens of inmates have died due to violence in Argentine prisons and only a few of these incidents
15:17have been investigated by the government. Guldani Prison, Georgia Guldani Prison, located in Tbilisi,
15:23Georgia attracted international attention due to a prisoner torture scandal that came to light in
15:28September 2012. The citizens of the country received a shocker when several videos that
15:33showed the prison guards and their superiors sexually molesting and torturing inmates were
15:37leaked. There had been a long-standing allegation that inmates at Guldani were being mistreated by the
15:42guards, but they remained allegations until the leaked videos confirmed them to be true. Thanks to the
15:47whistleblower, the country got to see firsthand the wickedness that took place in the prison. The videos
15:51were released by 35-year-old Vladimir Bedukadze, who was also a prison officer. After blowing the
15:57whistle on the evil doings of his colleagues at Guldani, Vladimir fled to Belgium for his safety.
16:02At first, he was wanted in connection to the abuse case, but the prosecutors eventually let off the
16:06hook after considering his immense contribution in uncovering the grievous crimes that went on in the
16:11prison. The said videos contained scenes of the inmates being sexually abused or raped with broom
16:16handles and police batons. In the first video, a total of 10 guards were seen physically and
16:21verbally abusing the prisoners. In a second video, one inmate is instructed to take off his underwear and
16:26do as he is told. As he takes them off, the guard begins to insult and spit on him. After
16:30some time,
16:31the guard refers to the man he was abusing as a thief-in-law. The video ends with the man
16:35being
16:35forced to write something like a speech while the guard dictated it to him. In the third video,
16:39an Armenian prisoner who is bound tightly to a cell rod is seen raining curses on the prison guards.
16:44The video then shows another prisoner wearing a face mask. He is seen begging the guards not to make a
16:49video
16:49of him while they had their fun. The guards respond to his pleas by mocking and humiliating him. The
16:54prisoners at Gul'dani prison have gone through this kind of torture for so long that this particular
16:59inmate wore a face mask to hide his face from the camera. In the same video, another man's backside is
17:04put on display while the torturer repeatedly asks him if he is a thief of the law, to which the
17:08man
17:08responded with, I am a thief-in-law. In one last video shot at the youth detention center, inmates were
17:14physically abused and forced to call themselves thieves-in-law, the guards threatening them with
17:18rape if they did not do as they were told. These videos unfortunately made it to the public before
17:23getting to the government. Various groups immediately began different protests across the country. The
17:28government was forced to investigate the matter and bring an end to the ill-treatment of prisoners
17:32at Gul'dani prison. The prison came to the spotlight again when the country's former president was
17:37imprisoned there. Various groups of protesters took to the streets, some in favor and others against the
17:42release of the former president, ADX Florence. ADX Florence, also known as Alcatraz for rookies,
17:48is one of the most secure prisons in the United States and no one has ever been able to escape
17:52from there. The facility was designed to hold the worst kinds of criminals who are considered a danger
17:57to the country or to other prisoners. The extreme security measures used in this prison have been a
18:02cause for debate and lawsuits for some time now. However, these measures were put in place to ensure
18:06that the hardened criminals locked there never make it back into society to cause more harm. The prison
18:11holds criminals like the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Ramzi Youssef, who was behind the bombing of the
18:16World Trade Center. The inmates at ADX Florence are kept in complete isolation for 23 hours every day.
18:22They are not allowed to see or interact with anyone. They are also not allowed any form of human
18:26contact. Each prisoner is locked in single cells for at least their first three years there. For one
18:31hour every day, the inmates are allowed to exercise their bodies in a small indoor underground
18:36pit that resembles an empty swimming pool. The pit is so small that it would take only 10 steps to
18:40walk
18:40across it in a straight line and 31 steps to walk around it in a circle. Inmates have no idea
18:45of
18:46their location or surroundings as they are not let out into the open yard. Each prison cell is built
18:51with proper planning to ensure the inmates are secure in the cells. The cells contain a bed, a desk, and
18:56a
18:56stool that are mostly made out of poured concrete. Each cell also contains a toilet, sink, and a shower
19:01that is uniquely designed to ensure prisoner safety. The shower works with a timer which means the water
19:06turns off after a short period. This is done so that the inmates do not have the opportunity to
19:10flood their cells. Each cell is 7 by 12 foot in size with a 4 by 4 window that allows
19:16inmates to see
19:17nothing more than the sky and roofs. Inmates can tell what time of the day it is by looking out
19:21their
19:21window but they do not know what their environment looks like. This window placing has played a major
19:26role in the sense that no prisoner has been able to plan an escape because they do not know anything
19:31about
19:31their immediate surroundings. For extra security the prison is rigged with cameras and motion detectors.
19:36Every nook and cranny of the facility is under 24 hour surveillance. There are a total of 1400
19:42doors in the prison and every door is controlled from a control room that is never left unguarded.
19:46In the case of an escape attempt or chaos all the doors are immediately locked by the push of a
19:51panic
19:51button in the control room and the doors remain locked until the problem is settled. Many human
19:56right activists have filed lawsuits against ADX Florence for the conditions in which the inmates are kept.
20:01Unlike other prisons where inmates face bad living conditions and physical torture, ADX Florence was
20:06carefully planned to mentally break the hardened criminals it holds. It has been said that keeping
20:11inmates in solitude for as long as three years has caused serious mental health damage to inmates.
20:16Camp 14, Kecheon, North Korea. Kecheon Internment Camp or Camp 14 is a labor camp in North Korea
20:23reserved for political prisoners and their families. The prison's official name is Kwan Lee So, a penal labor
20:28colony, number 14, and it sits on about 155 square kilometers of land. The camp contains farms,
20:34mines and factories where inmates are forced to work. About 15,000 people are imprisoned in Kecheon
20:40internment camps. There are overcrowded barracks for males, females and mature children. There are also
20:44administrative buildings and guard housings in the camp. People locked up in Camp 14 are those who have
20:49been classified as politically unreliable by the North Korean government. These people are seen as enemies of the
20:54state. They include government officials who performed poorly at their jobs, people who are
20:58suspected to be engaging in anti-government activities, and anyone who criticized the
21:02government. The sad thing about Camp 14 is that not only the supposed criminals are locked up here,
21:07the erring individuals and their families, including children, are rounded up and locked up together.
21:12The camp operates on a policy known as the Three Generations of Punishment, which means for every crime
21:17committed, the criminal's family members have to pay up to the third generation. Children who are born in the
21:21camp are not regarded as free citizens, regardless of the fact that they were not in the world when
21:26their parents were locked up. These children are born straight into the hardships found in the camp,
21:30and have no idea what living outside the camp is like. Prisoners are made to work in agriculture,
21:35coal mines, textile production, and in factories that produce food, paper, shoes, cement, ceramics,
21:40and rubber. Prisoners are given a choice to raise livestock because it gives them an opportunity to
21:44steal the food meant for the animals. When the prisoners are not slaving away at their jobs, they are
21:48constantly starved and tortured for minor offenses. Only one person has ever been able to escape from
21:53Camp 14 since it was built. Shin Dong-hyuk was 23 years old when he managed to escape the prison,
21:58but he had to climb over his friend's dead body and through an electrified fence to attain freedom.
22:03The freedom he worked hard to achieve was, however, a new concept to Shin, as he was born in the
22:07camp and
22:08had known nothing but starvation, hard labor, and constant beatings all his life. To make matters worse,
22:13he did not understand the meaning of family and love, as his environment had forced him to look upon his
22:18family as his competition for food. After he escaped, Shin managed to get into China, and from there he
22:23moved to South Korea before settling down in the United States. Judging from the fact that he grew
22:27up in a setting as harsh as Camp 14, it is safe to say that it definitely took Shin Dong
22:32-hyuk time
22:32to get adjusted to the way of life outside the camp. He remains the only person born and raised in
22:37a
22:37North Korean prison camp to have escaped. Gitarama Prison, Rwanda. The Gitarama prison in Rwanda is
22:42considered to be one of the deadliest and most crowded prisons in the world. The prison is home to
22:47about 7,000 inmates, when in fact it was built to contain only 600 inmates. The overcrowding was as
22:53a result of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which about 800,000 people were killed over a space of
22:59100 days. Everyone considered a suspect for the horrific crimes was immediately arrested and locked
23:04up in the Gitarama prison. The rapid overpopulation of the prison led to the death of more than 1,000
23:09inmates in 1995. The lack of proper living conditions, health care, and the use of unclean beds led to the
23:15rotting of the limbs of other inmates. Inmates spend many hours standing barefoot in whatever
23:20small spaces they can find, as the shortage of space does not allow them to sit or sleep comfortably.
23:26This continuous standing in unsanitary conditions results in many inmates' feet rotting and eventual
23:31amputation. The pronounced lack of proper medical care and frequency of sicknesses in this prison has
23:36led to a mortality rate of about eight prisoners per day. The death rate in the prison is also affected
23:41by the unending violence between inmates. The hunger and starvation in the facility have turned many
23:46inmates into cannibals. They have resorted to killing the weak and eating their meat to sustain
23:51themselves. Gitarama has become a jungle of sorts, as the inmates now operate on an eat-or-be-eaten
23:56mindset. Over the years, various human rights organizations have raised many objections about
24:01the inhumane conditions in which inmates at Gitarama have to live. Unfortunately, these pleas have
24:06continued to fall upon deaf ears, as nothing has been done to alleviate the suffering of the inmates.
24:11Although the media is full of bad stories about the Gitarama prison, Rwanda has spoken up to deny
24:16all such reports, calling them fabrications by the media. One spokesperson claimed that the prison
24:21was overcrowded because of the number of suspects and limited infrastructure. However, the reports about
24:27extreme conditions and cannibalism are pure fabrications. In contradiction to this statement,
24:32the former Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Sir Jeremy Hamley stated that the
24:37International Committee of the Red Cross believes that there have been over 2,000 deaths in 13 Rwandan
24:42prisons. They also believe that these deaths were caused by overcrowding and health problems with
24:47Gitarama, recording the highest number of deaths. On the topic of Rwandan prisons, another member of the
24:52Red Cross, Brigitte Troyon, said that the conditions in which inmates are kept are completely inhumane and
24:57they urgently need to be improved. If cannibalism has truly become a means of survival at Gitarama, then the
25:03mortality rates would continue to rise if nothing is done about the state of the prison. People should
25:08be afraid of getting into any kind of prison, but when it comes down to it, these prisons should be
25:12avoided at all costs. In many other prisons, inmates undergo rehabilitation and come out better citizens,
25:17but those who serve time in these prisons most likely come out worse than they went in. Check out
25:22this next video to learn more horrifying truths about life behind bars.
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