Gnezdoratt Correctional
Purpose / Function
Built from the remains of an unfinished sea fort, Gnezdoratt is officially a maximum security prison for the worst criminal offenders in Sovegrad, though serious offenders in surrounding regions can be sent there as well. Unofficially, it's a place where the corrupt officials of Sovegrad send their enemies to die. While violent offenders are sent there, many more are sent there that do not meet the standard criteria, but are sent anyways due to "unique circumstances". Anyone with a court in their payroll wields a sentence there as one of their most brutal punishments.
Architecture
The prison is built on a rocky island northwest Sovegrad, far enough from shore to make escaping the walls of the prison a moot point. The prison itself is actually made up of five large towers (hence it's street name), with the central tower being connected to the other four by a single steel cord bridge for each. While the bridges are built to last, they are known to sway in the wind and have no guard rails to prevent being swung or tossed off by the elements of the sea, much less by a fellow convict. The main tower is referred to by residents as "The Colosseum", partly due to being a large cylindrical shaft meant to shield airships at the skydock (the only entrance and exit off the island) with a large sandy covered open area at the bottom where the skydock's supports are dug in. The other four towers are their own large cellblocks. Each tower's walls are layered. The first and original layer is standard brick and mortar, with the second being almost a foot of solid, reinforced concrete.
History
Gnezdoratt's history as a prison is largely innocuous and out of mind for many people on the mainland. No recorded riots, breakouts, or other events that would inconvenience the free population of Sovegrad. Though the reality is that this "correctional facility" is more like a barbaric crucible, a meat grinder intended to annihilate individuals whose crimes are truly heinous or to bury and enemy to be forgotten by history. While many life sentence convicts reside there, most finite sentences do not exceed 15 years, the average being five to ten years. What is not usually understood or recognized is that each day in Gnezdoratt is a fight for survival.
Inside the prison, there are no guards. Food and supplies are airdropped into the towers on a scheduled basis.
The prisoners are left to their own devices, unfettered by authorities so long as they stay inside its walls. This is the reason why the prison is a death sentence in everything but name. Only the strong survive and many lifers resent anyone wearing the "salvation collars", magical collars that record an inmates remaining time in their sentences and teleport them to a holding pen at the skydock upon serving it out, and seek to kill them before they are set free.
The Colosseum encourages bloodshed further, as unsanctioned luxury supply drops are landed from time to time so that blood sport can ensue.
The prison is not segregated by sex or age, nor by the offences of the inmates.
The maximum security classification and the only mode of transportation mean that visitation and communications, like mail, are non-existent. It is widely believed that many death certificates of inmates are doctored and delayed to avoid suspicion and inquiry into the prison. There are only a few recorded cases of a prisoner serving out a sentence and returning to the mainland and all of them subsequently disappear from the public eye.
In 1261 MIE, the youngest prisoner was sentenced to ten years in the prison. The girl had no recorded name at the time but Inmate #650-12B, as she is listed, was sent there for the brutal killing of police hero Jackie "Iron Jack" Raffie.
Comments