Prison Chronicles

Leavenworth located 25-miles northwest of Kansas City–was the largest maximum-security federal prison in the United States for over a hundred years. Its imposing dome gave rise to the term “the big house”. Here are three tales of the struggle to endure life behind its giant walls. Carl Panzram, a violent inmate who attacks his foreman. Then, a murderer, Robert Stroud, who becomes famous for his work with birds. And finally, the prison’s drug trade gives rise to the most feared inmate in the country, Tommy Silverstein.

Attica, a 90-year-old maximum-security prison in upstate New York, has a legacy of violence and inmate abuse stretching back decades. From the serial killer Son of Sam who gets his throat slashed, to an Irish mobster Mad “Dog” Sullivan who is the only person to have escaped the prison successfully, and the deadliest prison riot in American history.

San Quentin located in Marin County on the San Francisco Bay is California’s oldest prison dating back to the gold rush, and home to the state’s only gas chamber. Here three men have tried to find their way out of the prison’s clutches. George Jackson attempts to shoot his way out by sneaking a gun in an afro wig. Stanley “Tookie” Williams, co-founder of the Crips, attempts to write his way out of prison and earns a Nobel Peace Prize Nomination. Serial escape artists Forrest Silva Tucker enlists two other inmates to make a boat and row their way out of the prison. Will they make it?

Dannemora, located in the frigid Adirondack mountains, its nickname is “little Siberia.” Officially called the Clinton Correctional facility–this foreboding prison is commonly known as Dannemora–named after the town where it is built. The prison opens on June 3, 1845, as a source of free labor for the local mines. Here are three of the most incredible tales from inside its icy walls. First, a desperate convict Kenneth Kimes takes a Court TV producer hostage. Then, a superstar prisoner, Tupac Shakur, stirs up trouble, and finally- two murderers, Richard Matt and David Sweat, attempt a daring escape.

A maximum-security prison on the banks of the Hudson, just 30 miles north of New York City, it gave rise to the term “being sent up the river”. “Old Sparky”–one of the first electric chairs in the world–takes over 600 lives. Famed escape artist Wille Sutton attempts an audacious plan. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, cold War spies, fight for their lives on death row. And a 1983 spontaneous uprising where the inmates take control.