Inside Britain’s ‘Hell Jail’ vs America’s Supermax: Who Keeps the Monsters Locked Down Better?
Britain risks its officers. America buries its inmates. Who’s got it right?
Belmarsh vs ADX: Which Side of Hell Would You Choose?
By Mike Olley
By the time you finish reading this, somewhere in Britain a prison officer will be abused, threatened, or attacked. It’s the hidden truth of our system: the men and women tasked with guarding the nation’s most dangerous are themselves placed in danger every single day
We call our Category A jails “maximum security.” Yet when you look across the Atlantic at ADX Florence — the notorious “Alcatraz of the Rockies” — you realise our maximum looks very different from theirs. The question is simple: who’s got it right?
The UK Way: Contain, Control, Hope
In Britain, our most feared prison is HMP Belmarsh in southeast London. It has become our shorthand for everything grim and gothic about justice: the “British Guantánamo,” they call it. It houses terrorists, murderers, organised crime bosses, and extremist preachers.
The roll call is infamous. Michael Adebolajo, killer of Fusilier Lee Rigby. Wayne Couzens, the policeman who kidnapped and murdered Sarah Everard. Levi Bellfield, the sadistic murderer of Milly Dowler. Extremist mouthpieces Anjem Choudary and Abu Qatada.
The idea is simple: lock them down hard, but not absolutely. Belmarsh and other Category A prisons (Frankland, Full Sutton, Woodhill) operate on a model of containment plus contact. Prisoners are under heavy surveillance, but they still mingle on landings, exercise in yards, attend limited education or religious services, and — under strict conditions — receive visits and phone calls.
The theory is that some may be rehabilitated, or at the very least, their dignity maintained. Noble in principle. But reality bites.
When Containment Fails
Ask the prison officer who was almost mutilated by Adebolajo in 2013. Just months after being jailed for life for the Woolwich murder, he tried to bite off a guard’s ear inside Belmarsh. The officer needed hospital treatment.
Ask the staff who dealt with Ian Huntley, the Soham murderer, when fellow inmates poured boiling water over him. Or those tasked with protecting Levi Bellfield, repeatedly targeted by other prisoners.
This is “maximum security” in Britain: high walls, locked doors — and constant risk for those in uniform trying to keep order.
The American Way: Obliterate the Risk
Now travel to Colorado, to ADX Florence. Opened in 1994, it was built to answer a simple question: how do you stop the most violent and dangerous from harming anyone — guards, inmates, even the public from inside?
The answer was brutal simplicity: you bury them in concrete.
🏗️ The Design
ADX is nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.” Its sterile architecture is no accident: grey walls, narrow corridors, and cells built for total isolation. Windows are slits angled to show only the sky, denying any sense of the outside world.
The Routine
23 hours a day locked in a 7-by-12-foot concrete cell.
1 hour of “exercise” in a caged pen, more pacing in a box than fresh air.
Meals passed through a slot in the steel door. Break the rules and you get the “nutraloaf” — a lawful but degrading brick of mashed leftovers.
Guards don’t linger, don’t chat. Human interaction is erased. Prisoners can go weeks without speaking to another human being.
The Human Impact
Years without touching another person.
Psychosis, depression, self-harm.
Suicide attempts are common.
Former inmates describe ADX as “a slow-motion death sentence.”
And guards too suffer: high stress, burnout, PTSD. Even if inmates can’t reach them physically, the environment grinds everyone down.
Why It Exists
ADX holds the “worst of the worst”: Abu Hamza al-Masri, Richard Reid, El Chapo, Robert Hanssen, Terry Nichols.
Many had murdered guards or orchestrated crime from other prisons. ADX was built as the final answer: cut them off completely.
By that measure, it works: escapes are unheard of, and staff deaths are virtually zero.
Critics call ADX “a clean version of hell.” But here’s the point: no prison officers are having their ears bitten off in Florence.
Human Rights for Whom?
Human rights campaigners write long reports condemning the isolation at ADX Florence. They speak passionately about prisoners’ rights.
But what about the human rights of those who guard them?
Was it humane for Adebolajo to sink his teeth into a British officer’s head?
Was it humane for staff to scrape boiling water off Ian Huntley’s skin while fearing reprisals themselves?
Is it humane to expect officers to walk landings knowing a fanatic would gladly kill them if given half a chance?
If campaigners believe extremists deserve softer conditions, perhaps they’d like to take the night shift on Belmarsh’s terrorist wing.
The Price of Protection
And here’s the insult on top of the injury. A rookie prison officer in Britain can start on as little as £25,000 in the private sector — barely more than a supermarket manager — or just over £30,000 in the public service.
For that, they’re expected to face down terrorists, killers, and thugs every single day. With experience and allowances it creeps into the £40,000s, and at the very top a Governor of a big jail might clear £100,000.
But let’s not kid ourselves: we’re asking people to risk mutilation for a pay packet that hardly reflects the danger.
Who’s Got It Right?
So which system is better?
The UK model: more humane on paper, offering dignity, rehabilitation, hope. But it exposes officers and inmates alike to danger.
The US model: ruthlessly effective at eliminating risk, but crushing to the human spirit. Inmates leave ADX in a coffin, or broken beyond repair.
There is no easy answer. A civilised society recoils from torture, even slow-motion psychological torture. But a civilised society should also recoil from allowing its own servants to be maimed at work.
The Debate We Need
Britain ducks the real question. Should we continue with a system that tolerates violence in the name of rehabilitation? Or should we take a leaf from America and build our own Florence — a true Supermax where the Adebolajos of this world will never sink their teeth into anyone again?
Human rights aren’t a one-way street. They belong not just to the prisoners, but to the officers who guard them, and to the public they protect.
It’s time we asked ourselves: whose rights matter more?