Abashiri Kangoku Hakubutsukan (Prison Museum)

Abashiri Kangoku Hakubutsukan (Prison Museum) Review

Spartan cells line the central corridors in five wooden prison blocks, showing how the convicts who built much of early Hokkaido lived out their years. Used between 1912 and 1984, the prison is now a park museum with the blocks, watchtowers, and preserved farm buildings. Only the most heinous criminals were banished to this forbidding northern outpost, the Alcatraz of Japan. English information is entertainingly lost in translation, but anguished-looking mannequins illustrate the grimness of life behind bars, and how grimmer it was for some who did escape.