The Hoa Lo Prison later known to American prisoners of war as the "Hanoi Hilton", was a prison used by the French colonists in Vietnam for political prisoners and later by North Vietnam for prisoners of war during the Vietnam War.

The name Hoa Lo, commonly translated as "fiery furnace" or even "Hell's hole", also means "stove". The name originated from the street name phố Hỏa Lò, due to the concentration of stores selling wood stoves and coal-fire stoves along the street from pre-colonial times.

The prison was built in Hanoi by the French, in dates ranging from 1886–1889 to 1898 to 1901, when Vietnam was still part of French Indochina. It was intentioned to hold Vietnamese prisoners, particularly political prisoners agitating for independence who were often subject to torture and execution. The French called the prison Maison Centrale - a usual term to denote prisons in France. It was located near Hanoi's French Quarter. A 1913 renovation expanded its capacity from 460 souls to 600. It was nevertheless often overcrowded, holding some 730 prisoners on a given day in 1916, a figure which would rise to 895 in 1922 and 1,430 in 1933. By 1954 it held more than 2000 people, and had become a symbol of colonialist exploitation and the bitterness of the Vietnamese towards the French.

The Leopoldov Prison, originally a fortress, is a high-security prison in the town of Leopoldov, Slovakia.

Construction of a fortress against Ottoman Turks started in 1665 and was finished in 1669, on the initiative of Leopold I, after the Nové Zámky fortress fell to the Turks. The fortress was built in a star shape, with two entrance gates. During the reign of Maria Theresa of Austria, it was used as a military warehouse. After loss of military importance in the 19th century, it was rebuilt as a prison in 1855, with a capacity of around 1000 inmates, what was the biggest prison in the Kingdom of Hungary at that time. During the Communist Czechoslovakia, the Communist government used the prison for holding and liquidating political prisoners, particularly in the 1950s. The conditions were harsh for prisoners, and the prison was one of the most notorious in the former Czechoslovakia. Among the inmates was Gustáv Husák (from 1954 to 1960), who would be later president of Czechoslovakia. The prison was modernized and reconstructed in the second half of the 20th century. Before 1989 there were approximately 2600 inmates in the prison.

The Eastern State Penitentiary is a former state prison in the United States. It is located on Fairmount Avenue between 21st and 22nd Streets in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 5 blocks north of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

It was significant architecturally, influencing the design of 250 other prisons, and is a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

Designed by John Haviland and opened in 1829, Eastern State is considered to be the world's first true penitentiary. Its revolutionary system of incarceration, dubbed the "Pennsylvania System" or Separate system, originated and encouraged solitary confinement as a form of rehabilitation. It was opposed contemporaneously by the Auburn System (also known as the New York System), which held that prisoners should be forced to work together in silence, and could be subjected to physical punishment (Sing Sing prison was an example of the Auburn system). Although the Auburn system was favored in the United States, Eastern State's radial floor plan and system of solitary confinement was the model for over 300 prisons worldwide. The name "Penitentiary" comes from the word "penance". The original goal was for prisoners to want to open up to God, thus seeking penance.

Warszawa-Bialoleka Arrest in Warsaw, Poland

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Prison in Wojkowice (southern Poland).

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Former soviet military base near Stare Kiejkuty in Poland.

Since 2005 this place has attracted scrutiny as being a possible black site involved in the CIA's program of extraordinary rendition.

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Prison in Goleniow, Poland

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Butyrka prison (Russian: Бутырка, a colloquial term for the official Бутырская тюрьма, Butyrskaya tyurma) was the central transit prison in pre-revolutionary Russia, located in Moscow.

The first references to Butyrka prison may be traced back to the 17th century. The present prison building was erected in 1879 near the Butyrsk gate (Бутырская застава, or Butyrskaya zastava) on the site of a prison-fortress which had been built by the architect Matvei Kazakov during the reign of Catherine the Great. The towers of the old fortress once housed the rebellious Streltsy during the reign of Peter I and later on hundreds of participants of the January Uprising of 1863 in Poland. Members of Narodnaya volya were also prisoners of the Butyrka in 1883, as were the participants in the Morozov Strike of 1885. The Butyrka prison was known for its brutal regime. The prison administration resorted to violence every time the inmates tried to protest against anything.