#correctional architecture

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Toyama Prison, Toyama Japan. Note the walled corridors that connect the various buildings. Photo taken in Apple Maps, which has 3D features for the city of Toyama.

36°39'15.3"N, 137°11'48.5"E

Wikipedia (japanese)

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Arizona's 'concentration camp': why was Tent City kept open for 24 years?

In 1993 Joe Arpaio, America’s ‘toughest sheriff’, opened a temporary outdoor jail in Phoenix. After more than two decades, the notorious project is finally closing.

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Gohardasht Prison (Persian: زندان گوهردشت), also known as Rajai Shahr is a prison in Gohardasht, a town in the northern outskirt of Karaj, approximately 20 km (12 miles) west of Tehran. Rajai Shahr is regarded as one of Iran's harshest prisons because of its many reported cases of torture, rape and murder. Many of the recent executions of young protesters were carried out in this facility. The BBC reported yesterday that "Dozens of people demonstrated outside Rajai Shahr jail overnight amid reports authorities were preparing to execute another two anti-government protesters."

35.8681°N 50.9789°E

Wikipedia

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Halden Prison (Norwegian: Halden fengsel) is a maximum-security prison in Halden, Norway. It has three main units and has no conventional security devices. Among other activities, sports and music are available to the prisoners, who interact with the unarmed staff to create a sense of community. Praised for its humane conditions, Halden Prison has been the subject of a documentary, but has also received criticism for being too liberal.

from Wikipedia

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Millhaven Institution, Bath, Ontario, Canada.

Millhaven (top), a maximum security prison with a capacity of 413 inmates, is one of the toughest prisons in Canada: its Maximum Security Unit is considered a "gladiator school", and convicts who serve time there are revered in the criminal subculture.

The perimeter is surrounded by a double 30-foot razor fence, and has observation towers at the corners. A 4-foot "warning fence" inside the perimeter of the exercise yard acts as a boundary that inmates cannot cross without deadly force being used. Armed patrol vehicles with Colt Canada C7 rifles and parabolic microphones are on guard at all times. There are motion sensors in the outlying property, and multiple CCTV units throughout. Visitors are subject to personal and vehicle search, and an ION scanner is used upon entry to detect drugs or other compounds on clothing or personal objects. The visiting area is equipped with CCTV, and listening devices are embedded in each table.

Millhaven is one of two identically designed maximum security institutions in Canada. The other is Archambault Institution, at Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec (bottom).

According to Wikipedia, canadian serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo is imprisoned here.

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United States Penitentiary, Victorville (USP Victorville), California, USA.

USP Victorville is a high-security federal prison for male inmates. The jail is part of the Victorville Federal Correctional Complex, that also includes the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI Victorville), a medium-security facility for male inmates with a satellite prison camp that houses minimum-security female offenders (bottom image, center and right). It is located on land that was formerly part of George Air Force Base and is approximately 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

USP Victorville (top image, and bottom left), opened in 2004, and is designed to house 960 male inmates in 6 housing units. Six V-shaped buildings facing each other and a larger maintenance building surround a central yard with a tower in the middle. Six additional towers are lined along the rectangular shaped facility. The facility is surrounded by a lethal electrical double fence, a 2 mt brickstone wall on its northern side and a view protection fence on its western side. Cells are approximately 4 m × 2 m, equipped with a bunkbed, a stainless steel sink-toilet combination and a small table with a non-removable stool. Cells are usually occupied by two inmates and are air conditioned.

Prisoners have access to text-based e-mail, but are only allowed 13,000 characters per e-mail, and attachments cannot be sent, received, or viewed. They are not allowed to retain more than two newspapers, 10 magazines and 25 letters in their cells. Inmates are counted 5 to 6 times a day.

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Oklahoma State Penitentiary (OSP), McAlester, Oklahoma, USA.

Opened in 1908 with 50 inmates, today the prison holds more than 900 male offenders, the vast majority of which are maximum-security inmates. OSP is also the site of Oklahoma's death row for men and execution chamber.

On July 27, 1973, trouble began in the prison's mess hall, and it quickly spread through the rest of the facility. At the end of the riot, three days later, three inmates were dead, 12 buildings were burned, and 21 inmates and guards had been injured. A federal court in 1978 found conditions at OSP unconstitutional. Consequent to the court's orders, four new housing units were built at OSP, and in 1984 the aging East and West Cellhouses were closed.

The Talawanda Heights Minimum Security Unit was opened outside the East Gate Area in 1989 to house inmates who hold support jobs inside the facility. In 1992, a special-care unit opened to provide mental health care to offenders, reducing the need for psychiatric hospitalization outside the prison. A medium security unit with a capacity of 140 inmates is located on G and I units.  H Unit  (pic. 33) houses inmates under both administrative and disciplinary segregation. H Unit is also the site of Oklahoma's death row and the state's lethal injection death chamber. Between 1915 and 2009, Oklahoma executed a total of 170 men and 3 women.

Since 1940, OSP has held a prison rodeo. Inmates from several prisons throughout the state compete. Attendance at the 12,500-seat arena (visible in pic. 1, on the left) is down in the 2000s from the 65,000 who routinely attended during a four-day version of the event in the 1960s. The animal-rights group PETA has denounced the rodeo on grounds of animal cruelty.

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William C. Holman Correctional Facility, Escambia County, Alabama, USA.

The facility, built to house 581 inmates, now holds more than a thousand prisoners, including a large contingent of life without parole inmates. The death chamber is located at Holman, where all state executions are conducted. Holman also operates two major correctional industries within the facility's perimeter: a license plate plant and a sewing factory.

Holman Correctional Facility was the subject of a documentary on MSNBC entitled Lockup: Holman Extended Stay (2006). Hillary Heath, the inside producer of the film, said that when she asked prisoners to describe Holman, they used names like "The Slaughterhouse", "Slaughter Pen of the South", and "House of Pain", which referred to the frequent stabbings and violent attacks committed among the prisoners. The names "The Bottom" and "The Pit" refer to the prison's location in southern Alabama. One inmate said that, within the state, "you can't get any lower than this." Heath reports that Holman inmates make "julep", a homegrown whiskey, using water, sugar, and yeast. She described julep as a brown liquid with dark floating chunks, resembling raw sewage. She said its odor "was not as vile as I imagined", smelling like sourdough bread and prunes.