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  • In the United States, as many as 20,000 prison inmates across the country have gone on strike

  • to protest slavery-like wages, abusive guards, overcrowded cells, and insufficient healthcare.

  • But despite these, the US prison system is not necessarily the worst, despite incarcerating

  • a higher rate than any other country.

  • Historically prisons have only improved, but in the last decade, deplorable conditions

  • have persisted around the world.

  • So, we wanted to know, what have been some of the worst prisons in modern history?

  • Well, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the most dangerous and inhumane prisons was located

  • in one of the most dangerous and inhumane countries: North Korea.

  • One of many political prisons, concentration camp number 22, has been described ashell

  • for both guards and prisoners.

  • Those sent to the camp were often those who had criticized the government, or former party

  • members thought to be unreliable.

  • Often, multiple generations of a prisoner’s entire family, including any children born

  • in the prison, were forced to serve a lifelong sentence alongside the accused.

  • Former guards described the shocking conditions, which included regular torture, malnourishment,

  • hard labor, and extermination of prisoners.

  • One guard also suggested that human experimentation occurred at the camp, where chemical and biological

  • weapons were tested on human subjects.

  • As many as 50,000 were believed to be held at the site.

  • After the prison became the focus of human rights groups and its location discovered

  • due to satellite imaging, it is believed the site was closed around 2012, although similar

  • conditions are reported in other prison camps around the country.

  • Another extreme prison, Tadmor Prison in Syria, was destroyed by the Islamic State in 2015.

  • Nonetheless, the prison has a horrifyingly violent history for Syrians.

  • The extremely inhumane treatment, and a massacre in 1980 made this one of the most dangerous

  • prisons.

  • After an assassination attempt on the former Syrian president, military members entered

  • the prison and executed an estimated one thousand people, an overwhelming portion of the prison

  • population.

  • But even twenty years later, conditions continued to be described as brutal.

  • A 2001 report from Amnesty International detailed that many prisoners were there for political

  • reasons, and would be beaten and tortured daily.

  • One example was that prisoners were seated in a chair that would arch all the way back,

  • causing asphyxiation and sometimes fracturing the prisoner’s spine.

  • While these prisons are closed, one that is still operating is the Muhanga District Prison,

  • formerly known as the Gitarama prison in Rwanda.

  • It has been described as theworst prison in the worldfor the deadly and dangerous

  • conditions.

  • The prison has a capacity of 500, but houses as many as seven thousand prisoners according

  • to the New York Times.

  • This incredible overcrowding means that prisoners cannot sit down, and some even develop gangrene

  • on their feet from the prolonged standing and unhygienic conditions.

  • While other prisons are dangerous for safety reasons, Muhanga, which largely houses criminals

  • from the Rwandan genocide, is dangerous as thousands have died from suffocation, disease

  • and neglect.

  • Although some of these prisons are believed to be shut down, similar conditions continue

  • in prisons all over the world, particularly in developing regions without accountability

  • to the world community.

  • From deadly living conditions, to outright murder, being incarcerated in any of these,

  • or similar, prisons is effectively a death sentence.

  • While the United States doesn’t necessarily have the worst prisons in the world, it does

  • incarcerate at a higher rate than any other country, and holds the largest prison population.

  • So what is going on with the US’s prison system? find out in this video up top.

  • You can also learn about solitary confinement, and its horrible effects on prisoners by watching

  • the video down below.

  • Thanks for being with us today on Seeker Daily, don’t forget to like and subscribe for more

  • videos every day!

In the United States, as many as 20,000 prison inmates across the country have gone on strike

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