A super-maximum security (supermax) or administrative maximum (ADX) prison is a "control-unit" prison, or a unit within prisons, which represents the most secure level of custody in the prison systems of certain countries.
ADX Florence
Alcatraz Island is a historical prototype of the supermax prison standard.
ADX Florence
Allan B. Polunsky Unit houses State of Texas supermax units
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are confined against their will and denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state, generally as punishment for various crimes. Authorities most commonly use prisons within a criminal-justice system: people charged with crimes may be imprisoned until their trial; those who have pled or been found guilty of crimes at trial may be sentenced to a specified period of imprisonment.
An old jail cell room in Indonesia, 2003
A common punishment in Early Modern Europe was to be made a galley slave. The galley pictured here belonged to the Mediterranean fleet of Louis XIV, c. 1694.
Women in Plymouth, England (Black-eyed Sue and Sweet Poll) mourning their lovers who are soon to be transported to Botany Bay (1792)
The beached convict ship HMS Discovery at Deptford served as a convict hulk between 1818 and 1834.