''The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.''
Having spent four years in a Siberian labour camp, Dostoyevsky knew what he was talking about. Unfortunately things don't seem to have improved all that much in the last 150 years. There are a shockingly high number of prisons throughout the world that forego a person's basic human rights and seem to take great pleasure in ridding someone not only of their liberty, but of their dignity and sanity, too. Many news stories would have us believe that most prisons are offering its inmates a quality of life better than most people have on the outside and that the loss of their freedom is not enough punishment for whatever crimes they've committed. However, if you think all prisons are like hotels, with gym memberships, PlayStations and pool tables, then think again. Join us for a look at 10 of the most brutal prisons in the world, where to do time is to know hell on Earth...
10. Gldani Prison
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7agkx7y8X8 Location: Tbilisi, Georgia Situated in Eastern Europe, Gldani came to the world's attention in September 2012 when a prison guard leaked a video of what life was like in the prison. The video showed guards humiliating, torturing and savagely beating inmates. Inmates were also handcuffed and raped with broom handles and police batons by the guards. Tragically, the prison guard who leaked the video has stated these atrocities happened on a daily basis. Hours before the tapes were released the Georgian Interior Ministry, aware they were to be broadcast, claimed the prison guards responsible were filming the torture and rapes and then selling the videos to a political rival and fellow inmate of Gldani. However, when the prison guard was interviewed he claimed the torture of the inmates had been ordered by Bacho Akhalaia, Minister of the Interior, with the full knowledge of Khatuna Kalmakhelidze, the Minister of Corrections and Legal Assistance. Both Akhalaia and Kalmakhelidze resigned from office following the spontaneous protests that followed the broadcasts, but neither man has spent a single day behind bars.
