Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Prisons

Elinor Powell (right) with a fellow nurse at POW Camp Florence in Arizona, circa 1944-1945

Women Who Shaped History

The Army’s First Black Nurses Were Relegated to Caring for Nazi Prisoners of War

Prohibited from treating white GIs, the women felt betrayed by the country they sought to serve

Court scene: Trial Ziang Sung Wan

The Triple Homicide in D.C. That Laid the Groundwork for Americans’ Right to Remain Silent

Decades before the Supreme Court’s Miranda decision, a 1919 murder trial presented a precedent for protecting criminal suspects from police overreach

A massive task force—150 full-time personnel from the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service—hunted the Unabomber.

When the Unabomber Was Arrested, One of the Longest Manhunts in FBI History Was Finally Over

Twenty years ago, the courts gave Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences, thereby ending more than a decade of terror.

Johnson pressed his ear to this humble cup to hear the tap code messages of his friend Bob Shumaker in the next cell over.

The Indomitable Spirit of American POWs Lives On in These Vietnam Prison Keepsakes

For seven years an internee at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton,” Congressman Sam Johnson entrusts his story to the Smithsonian

A woman peers out of a residential complex at the women-only Taconic Correctional Facility in Bedford Hills, New York, in 2012.

New York Directive Restricts Inmates’ Literature Options

A pilot directive affecting three New York State prisons stipulates that inmates can only receive packages from six approved vendors

Muhammad Ansi, "Drowned Syrian Refugee Child (from Images seen on TV)," 2016. "Muhammad Ansi, originally from Yemen, was detained at Guantánamo for almost 15 years before being released to Oman in January 2017. He learned to paint and draw at Guantánamo, working mainly in landscapes and still life. His art often features cities seen from far away, paths without beginning or end, and empty boats adrift at sea."

Exhibit of Art by Guantánamo Prisoners Prompts Pentagon Review

The Department of Defense has halted transfers of artworks by detainees

An artist's rendering of "the great rebel prison-pen at Andersonville, Georgia" that was included in a newspaper during Wirz's trial.

How the Trial and Death of Henry Wirz Shaped Post-Civil War America

A monument to Wirz still stands not far from the Confederate prison camp he commanded

An illustration by cartoonist Jean Veber depicts British Army troops rounding up South African Boer civilians

Concentration Camps Existed Long Before Auschwitz

From Cuba to South Africa, the advent of barbed wire and automatic weapons allowed the few to imprison the many

A convict hangs on to a bucking bronco c. 1940

Desegregation Came Early at the Texas Prison Rodeo

Before Brown vs. Board of Education, the “convict cowboys” of the Texas prison system showed off their bucking bronco skills

Page 3 of 3