Arresting Facts About International Inmates

13 THINGS - Arresting Facts About International Inmates

- Emily Goodman

1 AROUND 11 million people around the world are behind bars. But depending on where they are, their circumstances are very different. In China, for instance, wealthy lawbreakers can hire bodydoubles to serve their sentences for them. The practice even has a name: ding zui, which loosely translates to 'take the blame for someone else.'

2 THE WORLD'S smallest jail is on Sark, a self-governing island in the English Channel. Sark Prison has just two cells, but crime on the island is rare. Most of the jail's temporary residents are intoxicated seasonal workers and tourists who spend the night in one of the cells until they sober up.

3 AS FOR the biggest prisons (in terms of population), Marmara Prison, formerly called Silivri Penitentiary Campus, in Istanbul, Turkey, holds the official Guinness World Record with more than 22,000 inmates. However, a newly built facility in Tecoluca, El Salvador, has a capacity of 40,000. Of course, one could argue that Australia was the world's largest prison: More than 1,60,000 convicts were transported there during the 80 years the island served as a British penal colony.

4 SÃO PEDRO de Alcântara penitentiary, located on the coast of the southern state of Santa Catarina, Brazil, uses geese as guard dogs. Officials switched to geese about 15 years ago, citing lower costs: Hounds require training and visits to the vet, whereas geese don't. “It’s never happened,” says prison officer Marcos Coronetti, “but if someone tried to escape, the geese would go crazy. They would get our attention without a doubt.”