Inside The Most Notorious Women’s Prisons In The World

Julia Tutwiler Prison: Alabama, USA

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This prison, located deep in Alabama, is a maximum security female prison that also includes a notorious death row. Not only that, but it's been ranked in the top 10 most dangerous prisons in the USA - and it's also well-known for being investigated countless times for violence from guards on inmates.

Lowell Prison: Florida, USA

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This prison is not only one of the largest in the country, but one of the scariest due to the number of dangerous female prisoners it's held. Perhaps one of the most notorious is 'Sheila the Peeler' who would torture and kill her victims, which included two men. This prison also had an outbreak of tuberculosis.

The Metro State Prison For Women: Atlanta, USA

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The conditions in this prison were so bad that it's actually now shut down due to brutal conditions and problematic inmates. The prison was said to be so bad that inmates were turning to suicide just to escape from the conditions. This prison was also known for a very long and scary Death Row.

Indiana Women's Prison: Indiana, USA

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This women's prison is well-known for its variety of inmates needing special attention, including disabled and pregnant women. It also holds the only death row in the state of Indiana, and is known for holding some very notorious killers, including Gertrude Baniszewski, who tortured and killed a teenage girl.

Santa Fe Women's Correctional Facility: New Mexico, USA

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This correctional facility is known for being one of the worst in the US, particularly for its brutal living conditions. It also has the worst death rate of any of the women's prisons that exist in America. As well as the place itself being unhygienic, guards are known to be violent to the female inmates.

Grand Valley Institution: Ontario, Canada

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This prison is even scarier for the fact that it's located against the beautiful backdrop of Ontario - so you might not expect such a grisly place to exist within it. This prison - the only of its kind in this country - is notorious for the case of a 19-year-old inmate who strangled herself in solitary while the guards watched.

Pollsmoor Prison: Cape Town, South Africa

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This is perhaps one of the scariest prisons in the whole world - and is home to a particularly famous female inmate known as the 'Scissor Murderess', who brutally murdered the wife of her lover when she was only 18 years old. She was sentenced to death, but it was then reduced to a life sentence in this prison.

Heilongjiang Women's Prison: Heilongjiang, China

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This prison in China is known for its very, very tough rules - but it gets worse than that. It was revealed by one of the female prisoners that she was tortured and abused for almost three years - and the reason? Her faith. Not only that, but the prison was investigated for organ harvesting, and blood taken from prisoners without their consent.

HM Prison Holloway: London, England

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This was one of the most famous female prisons in the world, and also had a majority of female guards. It was known for very strict rules and very hard consequences for bad behavior. It was also home to famous monster Myra Hindley, who was a child murderer.

Bandyup Women's Prison: West Swan, Australia

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This maximum security prison has had a lot of issues with overcrowding during its operation, with more and more female prisoners filling its walls. The lack of space meant inmates were made to sleep on the floor next to toilets, and the prison also had a lack of showers and hospital facilities.

HM Prison Styal: Cheshire, England

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This prison is known for having the worst suicide record in England and Wales, and is one of the harshest prisons in the United Kingdom. The prison is known for inmates bullying each other, drug use and overcrowding - with the latter being so bad that people have even died because of it.

Kaechon Concentration Camp: Kaechon City, North Korea

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The name of this prison says it all: a concentration camp in North Korea is going to be one of the most brutal places you can be. The prison is huge, surrounded by barbed wire, with a reputation that most prisoners are definitely not going to make it out alive, with many having died in there.

La Mesa Prison: Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico

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This prison is very well known for dangerous riots, even more dangerous female prisoners and very harsh conditions. The riots in this prison are lethal, usually causing deaths. One of these such riots caused the death of nineteen inmates after they were refused water.

Chiang Mai Women's Correctional Institution: Chiang Mai, Thailand

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This prison is a strange one, because it's actually a massage parlor, too - for tourists. Female prisoners in this correctional institution have to offer a service to massage visitors - who are allowed at the prison - to give them a choice of massages, including foot massage, after which they get some food and coffee!

Parappana Agrahara Central Prison: Bangalore, India

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This prison is currently holding twice as many prisoners as it has capacity for, meaning overcrowding is a dangerous problem. One prison room may see up to 9 female prisoners sharing it. It was also discovered that some guards were trying to sell female inmates for services.

Silverwater Women's Correctional Center: New South Wales, Australia

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This is one of the largest correctional centers in the whole of Australia. If you're familiar with the tale of 'the dingo ate my baby', you might be surprised to hear that one of the most famous prisoners here was the woman wrongfully convicted of killing her baby daughter - only for it to turn out that a dingo had actually eaten her baby.

Qarchak Prison: Iran

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This prison, located in the middle of the desert, is known as the worst women's prison in the whole of Iran. One of its main issues is that it holds far too many prisoners, with overcrowding being a serious problem. The prison doesn't have rooms, but rather one big hall that has 600 beds.

IK-14 Prison: Moldovia, Russia

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This prison in Russia actually houses a working sweatshop, which female prisoners are made to work at - to the point they may actually lose some fingers. The conditions are so bad that it's invested with rats, and prisoners also turn to slitting their wrists just to escape living any longer in this prison.

HM Prison Bronzefield: Surrey, England

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This prison in England is for adult and young female offenders, and is the largest female prison found in Europe. It's very well known for having a relaxed routine that gives prisoners more run of the place, as well as very poor industrial relations and a high staff turnover.

Tashkent Women's Prison: Uzbekistan

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This country itself is one of the most brutal in regard to its citizens - and the prison system is the same. This women's prison is located next to a chemical plant, to start, and the inmates are treated more like animals and abused. They also need to work 16 hour days.

Changi Women's Prison: Singapore

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It's one of the most notorious prisons in South East Asia, and considered one of the worst prisons a woman can be in. The prison is used for women awaiting trial, and the conditions are less than pleasant. The atmosphere is very tense and hostile, as well as conditions being unsanitary.

Tipitapa Women's Prison: Nicaragua

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This prison is huge, with 100s and 100s of women of varying nationalities. It is one of the most heavily policed places on the planet, and even frightens the worst kind of criminals. The prison is well-known for its cruel methods of punishments, and the inmates are sometimes allowed to assault other inmates.

Bandes Des Femmes: Republic Of Congo

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While this prison actually comes in as a quite clean and sanitary place to be incarcerated, it's the treatment of inmates from prison staff that's one of the main problems. Many inmates have been imprisoned for years, and subject to abuse, while waiting for convictions on drug smuggling charges that may never come.

Hotelier Juvenile And Women's Jail: Egypt

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Located in the middle of a city, this is one of the most overcrowded prisons in the whole of the Middle East. The prison is packed with female prisoners who don't have room to sleep, forced to rest on the floor and don't have access to basic things like toilet facilities.

Women's Reformatory And Training Center: Jamaica

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Jamaica actually has a higher amount of female prisoners per capita than the United States, and this prison is just one notorious center for inmates. The strange thing about this prison is that many women prefer the idea of going to prison because they feel it's nicer than the outside world.

Herga Facility: Somalia

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Prisons in Somalia are very notorious for being brutal, and even having inhumane conditions. This particular facility for women is actually more like 'town', in that it's a setup of mud huts that are akin to poverty in terms of how filthy they are, and ridden with disease.

Shuping Female Labor Camp: China

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This is one of the world's most dangerous prisons for women, where reports include at best, abuse, at worst, death. Inmates can expect to die due to disease, infection or even pushed to suicide, as a result of the long hours they're forced to work, even in dangerous conditions.

Hoheneck Women's Prison: East Germany

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Also known as Hoheneck Fortress, this women's prison was operating in East Germany up until 2001, well-known for its number of political female prisoners detained there. Over twice as many inmates were kept there as the prison was capable of holding, and it was known for holding Nazi war criminals.

Black Dolphin Prison: Russia

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This prison houses only the most dangerous and violent criminals, including serial killers, cannibals and terrorists. Prisoners in this place have to be watched 24 hours a day, and the inmates only have an empty concrete yard to see the outside world, which they can only use for 90 minutes a day.

Kamiti Maximum Security Prison: Kenya

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This prison is regarded as one of the absolute worst in Kenya, with extremely unsanitary conditions. The center is also notorious for being very overcrowded. The prison has also seen widespread cases of diseases like HIV and tuberculosis. In recent years, the prison also had guards actually helping terror suspects to escape.