Prisons

An odd, ancient window that may have once been part of a brutal prison is embedded in the side of New York's Police Plaza.

This circular Iranian jail was once a political prison run by the country's secret police.

The ruins of a Massachusetts prison farm can still be found crumbling the woods of a state park.

The secret cells in the basement of the KGB's Estonian "Grey House" have been preserved as a grim Cold War museum.

The world's only three-story rotary jail is now a museum to a bizarre trend in prison design.

Building this tragically pointless stone barrier cost the lives of the prisoners made to build it.

This tiny historic jail along Route 66 is the perfect fit for exactly one criminal and their partner-in-crime.

This historic island prison holds one of the dungeons from the Count of Monte Cristo even though it is a work of fiction.

This abandoned prison castle has become an imposing gallery of graffiti art.

This ancient Roman prison is decorated with an upside-down cross not as blasphemy but as saintly tribute.

The first spinning jail built in the United States is the only one that still turns.

The ruins of this Brazilian island prison still bear the scars of the bloody rebellion that closed it down.

Once housing children next to hardened criminals this historic jail once displayed Ned Kelly's skull until it was stolen.

This historic Canadian jail was once the longest operating prison in the country and is now open for people to incarcerate themselves.

The most visited pilgrimage site in Armenia once held a saint in a pit for 13 years.