What kind of hellhole keeps men, women, and raccoons in the same place?
In Real Life, modern prisons prefer to have separate facilities for male, female, and juvenile inmates (which are also divided by sex), with no combinations thereof for prisoner safety. This includes concerns over Prison Rape, conflicts over potential romantic partners, and minimizing the chance of inmates becoming pregnant (a logistical nightmare even with separate women's prisons). Many works of fiction tend to ignore these potential issues, and instead depict inmates of different sexes and/or ages in prisons who shouldn't legally be allowed to stay together.
Often seen in fantastical or science fiction worlds — separate male and female sections might seem silly for prisons that need to house prisoners of many different species, sizes, and Bizarre Alien Sexes. An Extranormal Prison built to contain superpowered individuals might be difficult or impossible to create multiple copies of, so everyone goes in the same one (though it might have separate sections for men and women). Any kind of prison which keeps each person in their own containment cell full-time may not bother with separate sections — such as People Jars or a Crystal Prison. Or it might simply be done to emphasize how brutal and inhumane those in charge of operating the prison are.
Often the case in a Penal Colony or P.O.W. Camp. It happened often enough historically and has been done in the modern world.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Green Dolphin Street Prison from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean is seemingly unisex, having both male and female inmates sharing the same facility, altough the dorms are still segregated by sex.
- One Piece:
- Impel Down is apparently co-ed. As with soldiers and pirate crews, all the incidental inmates are male, but Catarina Devon was held on Level Six and characters speculated Nico Robin was being sent there during the Enies Lobby arc (which wasn't the case, but not because of her sex). This is setting aside a sizable group of the prisoners being newkama whose leader can change their sex at will, but appear to all be assigned male.
- Miss Goldenweek's cover story show the naval base that the Baroque Works members were held in before being sent to Impel Down. Prison cells are segregated by sex but apparently not age, as no one bats an eye at Miss Goldenweek (who a later source establishes as sixteen, but often looks much younger than that) becoming a Trojan Prisoner.
Comic Books
- Batman:
- Strictly speaking, Arkham Asylum is a maximum-security mental hospital rather than a prison, so it makes sense that it houses both male and female inmates. However, Depending on the Writer, they might be shown as being housed in separate wings; sharing common areas; or even being housed in separate cells next to each other, if the author wants some unusual character interactions.
- In a story where Arkham inmates were temporarily housed in Blackgate Penitentiary while the asylum underwent extensive repairs, the warden of Blackgate specifically made certain that Poison Ivy was housed separately to prevent a riot among the all-male general population, not only because of her beauty but also her Living Aphrodisiac powers.
- Marvel Universe: Negative Zone Prison 42 was a prison created to hold powerful supervillains during the Marvel Civil War. It was not segregated and held both male and female supervillains.
- The Vault, the first purpose-built superhero prison in the MU (following the makeshift use of the Project: Pegasus facilities as a supervillain prison), was also not segregated by gender. An example was shown during the Armor Wars when Titania and Mr. Hyde were shown having cells across the hall from each other.
- Superman: The Phantom Zone is a pocket dimension that has long been used as a prison, to prevent very powerful villains from escaping back into our world. There's only one Phantom Zone, so anyone who needs to be kept there goes to the same place. However, while the inmates can communicate, being intangible they cannot physically interact with one another in the Zone.
- The Transformers (IDW): Because Transformers are a mechanical species where gender affects appearance and personality but they all have No Biological Sex there's no point in segregating male and female prisoners, so nobody ever does.
Fan Works
- Dahlia Hawthorne Escaps From Pirson by Detsniy Off Skiword plays this as straight as an arrow. Both men and women escape from the same prison, and a few of the criminals are on completely different levels, such as murderers like Dahlia and Kristoph apparently being in the same prison as Ted Tonate, an accomplice to a terrorism plot, or the phantom, an international spy.
- Flat Dreams" Bil is imprisoned in the Infinetentiary. Not only does the prison house both male and female prisoners, Bill is even assigned a female cellmate— Pyronica. Of course, since Pyronica eats anyone she has sex with, she doesn't have to worry so much about sexual assault.
- Law Plus Chaos, a Ace Attorney fanfic, shows that apparently every criminal is kept in the same prison, regardless of sex or severity of their crimes, so a female perjurer is kept in the same building as a man who was (falsely) convicted of rape, for example.
Films — Animation
- Zootopia 2: When Nick is arrested he's put in the same prison as Nibbles and Bellwether. Later the entire Lynxley family is shown sharing a single cell.
Films — Live-Action
- Batman & Robin (1997) has Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy sharing a cell by the end of the film. Justified in the comic adaptation, where it's explained that Freeze bribed some of the guards so he can have his revenge for Ivy nearly killing his wife.
- In MTV's "Hip-Hopera" version of Carmen (1875), the hoodlum played by Bow Wow is placed in an adult prison even though the rapper was only 13 during filming.
- The Dark Knight Rises:
- Downplayed. The Dent Act allows the Gotham Department of Corrections to make exceptions to sex segregation on a case-by-case basis. They put Catwoman in Blackgate Prison with the men because she has a history of escaping from women's prisons, including once as a juvenile.
- Also, the reason why Bane exists is because Ra's al Ghul's lover was imprisoned next to her newly born child (and Ra's' daughter) in an all-male prison. She was supposed to be separated, but a guard forgot to close the door, and she was gang-raped to death. The little girl was saved thanks to Bane saving her and helping her escape.
- Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: Lampshaded. Edgin and Holga are incarcerated together, and their new hobgoblin cellmate comments that he has never shared a prison cell with a female before (suggesting that it's unusual even in this setting). She promptly delivers a beatdown when he starts getting fresh with her.
- Escape from New York and Escape from L.A.: Given that both are city-sized penal colonies, it wouldn't be practical to build separate, segregated prisons. The prisoners essentially form their own culture.
- Fortress (1992): Downplayed. The Men-Tel Corporation's massive prison, built into an underground mine in the desert, houses both male and female inmates, but separates them into different wings. The reason for this is that Men-Tel is using the women as Breeding Slaves to create new cyborg offspring that are under its complete control.
- Fortress 2: Re-Entry: The new prison houses men and women together in the same cramped living quarters. They even shower together! As you might expect, Prison Rape is hinted at, although not shown. Since it's a Prison Ship orbiting the Earth, there presumably is no room to even bother. That, and because the inmates are already condemned to death, the administrators are not concerned for their safety either.
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): The Kyln is a massive space prison that holds people of different sexes and species. This makes sense, given that it needs to hold everything from tree-people to humans — a simple male/female divide would probably not work. And, as Rocket explains, the guards are there to keep them from escaping, but nobody in charge cares what the inmates do to each other.
- Minority Report has convicts stored in vertical tubes set into the lobby floor. New inmates and those being released are routed through this lobby. Convicts are stacked four to a tube, regardless of sex. They don't move much, as they're kept in a coma-like state using neuro-suppression devices, colloquially called "halos".
- Played with in Suicide Squad (2016) and The Suicide Squad. Belle Reve houses both men and women (and whatever Weasel is), but unlike most super prisons in media, its shown that they're kept in separate wings much like real prisons are, and for cases like Harley Quinn, are kept secluded in their own cell away from everyone else. Still, when it comes time to go out on their mission in the first film, Harley is brought in with the men and proceeds to change right in front of all of them, and in the sequel, when recruiting Ratcatcher 2, Waller brings Peacemaker and Bloodsport with her into the female wing, where they get oogled and cat-called by the women.
Literature
- Zigzagged with the Penal Colony in Crest of the Stars. There are three sections: One male only, one female only, and one non-single-sex. Part of the requirements for moving from the single sex sections to the non-single-sex section is agreeing to be sterilized so that the guards don't have to worry about children complicating the resource needs of a prison planet dependent on external food drops.
- Harry Potter: Azkaban houses all of the dangerous witches and wizards on an island. They are all kept in their cells full-time so there's no mingling.
- Vorkosigan Saga: The Dagoola IV Top Security Prison Camp #3, from "Borders of Infinity", thanks to the externally generated force field, has no cells. Or walls, or privacy, or guards... All the female prisoners stick together, however, because of earlier incidents.
- Ward: On Earth Shin, prisons are communal and are not segregated by sex or age. Because family values are serious business in Shin, in some cases a prisoner's family will live with them during their sentence.
- Worm: Prior to the events of Ward, you have the Birdcage, The Alcatraz of the Wormverse. It was built with different sections for men and women, but by the time it's introduced, there's been a hole in the dividing wall for a long while. Since there's no guards or staff within the prison, regulating contact between the sections falls to the prisoners. Fortunately, there's enough Lawful Evil inside to keep up some semblance of order.
- Worldwar: The Race invade Earth in the midst of World War II, and imprison their human captives together regardless of what side they are on. In China that means the Chinese massacre the now unarmed Japanese captives. They also lock up men and women together because they have trouble understanding human sexuality, as the Race only mate when they are in season. Soon they start having the prisoners mate purposefully to learn more, which includes rape (either by one prisoner doing it, or the Race coercing both).
Live-Action Television
- Andromeda: Dylan and Rommie are charged with sedition and sent to a Private Profit Prison where all prisoners regardless of sex or species are allowed to roam freely inside the facility. They learn that prisoners actually have children who are born and spend their entire lives inside the prison, which they justify by saying that criminal behavior is hereditary.
- Cheers: Invoked when Rebecca found out Robin was using her to commit insider trading.
Rebecca: Would it be so bad if I didn't turn him in. What would happen?
Sam: He would go to jail and you would go to jail too.
Rebecca: I know. Any chance they'd send us to the same jail? - Dark Matter (2015): When the Raza crew are captured and incarcerated in season 2, they're locked up in a prison on a moon that mixes men and women, even forcing them to strip in front of one another and walking undressed female prisoners in underwear past male prisoners. The issue of rape is only at best alluded to when a guard briefly suggests to Two that she can have an easier time in the prison by prostituting herself to the other inmates, with the implication this is a common tactic among many of the women in the prison for either getting cash or avoiding violence. Otherwise, male-on-female violence isn't shown, but female-on-male is when Nyx tries shaking down Three; as this is a maximum-security facility, it appears that the only women incarcerated are tough enough to handle themselves. Notably, she gets three male inmates to back off just by telling them to.
- Heroes: The holding cells in Primatech facilities have one prisoner in each cell. There is no indication that women are contained separately. However, very few women prisoners are shown.
- Our Miss Brooks: In "Bobbsey Twins in Stir", Miss Brooks is jailed alongside Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conklin and Mr. Stone. Miss Brooks explains that the women's tank was full. Again, Miss Brooks was happy to be alone with Mr. Boynton... but Mr. Conklin being thrown into the jail cell ended her reverie.
- Red Dwarf: Downplayed in series VIII. The Tank takes prisoners regardless of sex, and there is a lot of mixing between men and women, however individual cells have either men or women inmates. With the exception of Kryten and Kochanski's cell, as the space corps decides the gender of inmates based on their genitalia (and Kryten has none despite identifying as male).
Kochanski: What happened? Did you lose it?
Kryten: I was never issued with one, ma'am. - Say Nothing: Dolours and Marian are sent to Brixton Prison, a male facility, which they immediately protest, demanding being placed in a women’s prison. They are held in isolation from the male inmates, but get cat-called and spied on whenever they’re visible, with one even masturbating while he watches them in the exercise yard.
Radio
- Our Miss Brooks: "Student Government Day" sees Miss Brooks thrown into jail with teenagers Walter Denton and Harriet Conklin and all the other high-schoolers elected to city-positions-for-a-day. Miss Brooks is rather happy when Mr. Boynton is thrown in as well.
Video Games
- Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown features Avril Mead, who was conveniently found guilty of flying an unidentified aircraft during wartime operations on the very day that war was declared against the Kingdom of Erusia. She is sent to the 444th Osean penal unit because she's a great aircraft mechanic. Every other prisoner in the 444th is a male pilot, but her sex is a complete non-issue.
- In Arknights, the Mansfield Break story zig-zags this with the titular Mansfield Prison. There isn't any sex separation, so male and female guards and prisoners are in the same cell blocks. However, there is segregation in that normal, healthy prisoners are kept in a separate cell block from the Infected, who suffer from the terminal disease Oripathy.
- Fontaine's Fortress of Meropide in Genshin Impact is a massive underwater prison where inmates, both male and female, live together. In an interesting note, rather than a supermax prison (and despite the presence of prison guards), it is simply a place where Fontaine's exiles are sent into, and Wriothesley's administration meant that some of the inmates prefer living there compared to the surface.
- Mass Effect 2: A ship that's a mobile prison is the location where Jack is picked up. It's a privately-run prison that houses dangerous inmates as long as someone pays for them to be kept there. Some are kept in cells, others (such as Jack) are kept in cryostasis. Given the number of different aliens kept there, and the fact that some of them have biotic powers, it makes sense to not bother trying to segregate by sex, though if you talk to Jack she'll confirm that prison rape is a huge threat (though she had too frightening of a reputation for most of them to bother her). A male prisoner talks euphemistically about sexual assault, saying they would take one's "pride", suggesting sex was not a barrier to assault in that prison anyway.
Webcomics
- Kevin & Kell: When R.L. and Angelique are arrested for fraud they wind up sharing a cell, after R.L. ate his previous cellmate.
- R.A.M. the Robot: While Jake is in prison
for running a purple light he shares a prison cell on Space Alcatraz with his career criminal sister Jackie. Though it later turned out that they might be clones.
Web Videos
- SuperMarioLogan: In "Jeffy and Junior go to prison", Jeffy ends up in the same prison cell as his abusive mother, Nancy, after he and Junior are arrested.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time:
- Any non-wizards caught in Wizard City go to Wizard Prison, which resembles a modern prison (orange jumpsuits, cafeteria line) although Bubblegum (adult female), Jake (adult male), and Finn (underage male) are all imprisoned together.
- The Crystal Citadel holds the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy. It's not divided since each is prisoner is kept in their own crystal.
- Arcane: Stillwater prison holds both male and female prisoners, as Vi was able to break the jaw of a (male) Silco thug within hours of his arrival.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
- The prison rig which houses the earthbenders is not divided by sex or age.
- Boiling Rock, the most secure prison in the Fire Nation, also houses all prisoners with no divides but has individual cells, unlike the prison rig.
- The waterbender prisons also housed both men and women, though each individual was assigned to a single, separate cage.
- Arkham in Batman: The Animated Series, although technically a mental asylum (as mentioned in the comics section), is mixed-sex. "Joker's Wild" shows how the television room is shared by imamates of both sexes (the Joker even makes unwanted advances toward Poison Ivy).
- In one episode of The Cuphead Show!, Cuphead and Mugman are incarcerated into a penitentiary where the other inmates are obivously adults, some even female, despite them being young boys. Then again, given that everyone in the show appears to be a Single-Specimen Species, segregating prison would be a nightmare.
- In one episode of DuckTales (1987), Scrooge and Mrs. Beakley are actually placed not only in the same prison, but in the same cell.
- In Gravity Falls, Gideon Gleeful, despite being a child, is incarcerated in an adult prison after the events of the Season One Finale. This was down to the fact that the town's founder Quentin Trembly was utterly nuts and wrote a series of Loony Laws that the town still practiced (mostly cause most of them are kookie at best as well). This doesn't stop him from menacing the Pines Family in both the series finale after making a deal with Bill Cipher and on one other occasion.
- Harley Quinn (2019): In villain-controlled Gotham, Harley and Ivy are sentenced to prison together with male inmates in "All the Best Inmates Have Daddy Issues". The prison is run by Bane and is a parody of the cave seen in The Dark Knight Rises; it's actually more lame than dangerous.
- Kim Possible: In "The Big Job" and "Car Alarm", Drakken and Shego are in separate wings of the same prison to set up the gag of another villain (Drakken's own cousin Motor Ed, in one case) breaking out Shego while leaving Drakken behind.
- Whenever they get arrested, the various villains and criminals in The Powerpuff Girls (1998) are seen in the same prisons together, regardless of if they're men, women, children, or even human.
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: When Obi-Wan goes on an undercover mission, he is put in a prison which contains the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy. One of those prisoners turns out to be Boba Fett, even though he was a child at the time.
- Trolls: The Beat Goes On!: The Fun Dungeon, a building originally established in the episode "Funishment", was meant to be used to punish both male and female Trolls, and it overloads with them in the episode's climax before finally being left unused. In "Party Crashed", the Party Crashers also kept Poppy (female) and Branch (male) together in the dungeon upon capturing them.
- Notably averted in Young Justice (2010) with Belle Reve, a maximum security metahuman prison. Aside from the inhibitor collars individually designed to neutralize each metahuman inmate and the massive floor-mounted machine guns pointing into every common area, it functions much like a normal prison. A multi-villain plan to spring a massive jailbreak required ice villains Icicle Jr., Captain Cold, and Mr. Freeze to enter the female wing and Killer Frost to enter the male wing, so they could work together from both sides.
Real Life
- 18th-century British prisons operated like this. This was especially the case in debtors' prisons, where debtors would be allowed to bring their families with them (otherwise they would starve). As one would expect, rape was endemic. Consensual relationships occurred too of course, and some spouses were held together, along with children. Babies were frequently born in prison due to the above as well.
- It has been tried: from the NYT Archives.
- Also occasionally studied, with some positive findings: Does Coed Prison Work?
- Interestingly, Logan Correctional Center was Coed for over a decade, and it was not declared a disciplinary failure, but an administrative hassle.
- Another example: Federal Penitentiary at Fort Worth.
- In Denmark, even some maximum security prisons are coed. They also have a lot less problems than American prisons, so make of that what you will.
- Also occasionally studied, with some positive findings: Does Coed Prison Work?
- The treatment of transgender inmates is a very touchy subject based on jurisdiction. In most countries, trans people are incarcerated in the prison of their biological sex even if they've been living and presenting as their target gender for years. As one might imagine, trans women in men's prisons are very often victims of rape. However, there is a small but increasing number of countries that incarcerate trans persons in prisons of their target gender if they are legally recognized as such. Rather frustratingly, the issue of rape has been incorrectly cited and weaponised against trans people in this respect, as many tabloids, such as the Daily Mail, have cited a finding on the high number of rapes committed by trans inmates against cis women inmates in British prisons as "proof" of the danger — while overlooking that in British prisons, trans people aren't incarcerated with their gender identity but their biological sex, and those reports are about trans men.