10 Most Infamous Prison Riots Ever

10 Most Infamous Prison Riots Ever

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at ten notorious prison uprisings that ended in bloodshed, either in America or around the world.

Brazil Prison Riots (2017)

The prison system of Brazil erupted into coordinated chaos at the start of 2017, when a wave of riots exposed a crisis that has been building for years. A massacre inside a Manaus facility triggered retaliatory violence between rival criminal factions nationwide. In January alone, over one hundred inmates were killed in attacks authorities linked directly to the turf war between the First Capital Command and Comando Vermelho gangs. The bloodshed exposed how thoroughly organized crime thrived inside Brazil’s overcrowded and understaffed prisons. Gang leaders reportedly coordinated attacks between facilities using smuggled phones. Though the riots pushed the federal government to deploy troops to the worst-hit states, the underlying overcrowding crisis went largely unaddressed. Similar factional violence has occurred repeatedly since.

Lucasville Prison Riot (1993)

What made the Lucasville riot so unusual wasn’t just its length, but the alliance that held it together. On Easter Sunday 1993, inmates at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility seized a cell block after disputes over conditions and mandatory tuberculosis testing. White supremacist gangs and Black Muslim prisoners, normally bitter rivals, cooperated for all eleven days to hold the block. When the prisoners felt their demands were being ignored, a hostage, Officer Robert Vallandingham was killed as a violent ultimatum. Negotiators kept talking even after the gruesome act to resolve the standoff without further bloodshed. By the time the uprising ended, one guard and nine inmates died in total. Surprisingly, despite the killing that occurred, the riot was contained without an armed retaking.

Rikers Island Riot (1986)

Long before Rikers Island became synonymous with institutional violence and dysfunction, a 1986 riot had already exposed how badly things had deteriorated. Nearly two hundred inmates clashed violently, injuring dozens of prisoners and correctional officers inside New York City’s largest jail. Investigators traced the outbreak to severe congestion, understaffing, and gang tensions that had left officers managing housing units well beyond their intended capacity. Rikers had no single warden overseeing the entire complex at the time, a structural gap the city cited in its own review. Nearly four decades later, the same failures identified in 1986 are still cited in federal monitoring reports. The city, however, remains under a court-ordered plan to close the complex entirely and replace it with smaller borough-based jails.

For more breakdowns of compelling cases and true crime stories, scan the QR code on screen to join WatchMojo’s 24/7 True Crime livestream.

Ciudad Juarez Riots Mexico, 2009

The violence inside Ciudad Juárez’s CERESO prison mirrored the cartel war raging beyond its walls. On March 4, 2009, rival gangs including Barrio Azteca and Los Mexicles seized keys from a guard and opened cell blocks. They armed themselves with knives, iron bars, and smuggled firearms in a battle that left 20 dead and 15 injured within roughly two hours. Mexican authorities deployed soldiers, hundreds of police, and helicopters before regaining control. Investigators later found gang leaders had continued running criminal operations from inside CERESO using smuggled phones, directing street-level cartel violence. Though the uprising was curtailed in the prison, the streets of Ciudad Juárez witnessed thousands of deaths within that year. Consequently, the riot pushed Mexico to later build federal maximum-security facilities.

Pavon/Granja Pino Canada/El Hoyon Prisons Riots (2005)

Senseless violence swept through seven Guatemalan prisons at once in 2005, exposing how far the government’s control had already eroded. The deadliest clashes struck Pavón, El Hoyón, and Granja Penal Canadá, where rival gangs fought with firearms and grenades in battles that killed at least thirty-five people. Pavón in particular had become notorious even before the riot. Inmates there reportedly ran their own internal economy, complete with restaurants, a church, and armed checkpoints under negotiated deals with corrupt guards. The 2005 unrest was an early sign of that arrangement collapsing under gang rivalry. It took a joint police-military raid the following year, Operation Gavilán, to finally retake Pavón by force. Ironically, that same operation drew allegations of extrajudicial killings.

Montana State Prison Riot (1959)

An escape attempt spiraled into one of the longest hostage crises in American correctional history when inmates seized control of Montana State Prison in April 1959. Prisoners overpowered guards and captured weapons, and the standoff dragged on for thirty-six hours. It ended only after ringleader Jerry Myles, who had famously broken out of the same prison years earlier, shot his own second-in-command and a guard before turning the gun on himself. Apparently he concluded there was no way out before authorities regained control of the complex. Unfortunately, several people died before the siege’s end. The prolonged crisis pushed Montana to overhaul staffing and security at the aging facility which had operated largely unchanged since its original 1871 construction.

Carandiru Massacre (1992)

A prison riot at Brazil’s Carandiru Penitentiary became one of the most controversial uses of lethal force in modern prison history. On October 2, 1992, a fight between inmates escalated into rebellion, prompting hundreds of São Paulo military police to storm the facility. When the operation ended roughly thirty minutes later, one-hundred and eleven prisoners were dead, most from gunfire. Convictions against the officers took over two decades to secure and were then overturned on appeal in 2016, when a court ruled the killings had been self-defense. Surviving inmates later formed the Primeiro Comando da Capital partly as protection against further police violence. The resulting gang became one of Brazil’s largest criminal organizations. Carandiru itself was demolished in 2002 and replaced by a public park.

Strangeways Prison Riot (1990)

What began as a protest during a British prison chapel service became the longest prison riot in the country’s history. On April 1, 1990, an inmate seized the microphone mid-sermon at Strangeways Prison in Manchester and rallied fellow prisoners to take control of the building. The standoff stretched twenty-five days, ending only when the last five men climbed off the roof. One prisoner was killed, with almost a hundred and fifty officers and forty-seven inmates were injured, in a disturbance that caused over $55 million in damage. The resulting report conducted by Lord Justice Woolf concluded conditions had been genuinely intolerable. This led directly to the phased abolition of prisoners manually removing human waste from cells. Strangeways reopened in 1994 as HMP Manchester after a full rebuild.

New Mexico State Penitentiary Riot (1980)

The riot of February 1980 in New Mexico State Penitentiary is still described by investigators as the most violent prison uprising in U.S. history. After inmates seized the control center on February 2, small groups broke into a segregated block housing suspected informants. They turned their fury there instead, attacking inmates who guards had coerced into becoming snitches. By the time police retook the prison thirty-six hours later without firing a shot, thirty-three inmates were dead. The state’s attorney general later blamed the prison officials, though remarkably, none of the twelve hostage guards was killed. Despite the scale of killing, prosecutors secured almost no convictions, a failure the AG’s own report called one of the case’s most troubling legacies.

Attica Prison Riot (1971)

On September 9, 1971, a conflict between inmates and authorities broke out in Attica prison. The uprising started when prisoners at the Correctional Facility seized the prison and took forty-two staff hostage. They asked for better living conditions and political rights after a summer of unanswered grievances. Though the majority of the prisoners’ demands were agreed to, authorities refused to remove Attica’s warden or grant the prisoners amnesty. After four days of negotiations, State police retook the facility in an assault that killed forty-three people. Officials initially claimed inmates had slit hostages’ throats. But autopsies quickly proved every hostage death had come from police gunfire, exposing an attempted cover-up. The retaking directly shaped the modern prisoners’ rights movement that followed.

Were there any prison riots we neglected to mention? Let us know in the comment section.