Core77

With Fox's Prison Break now into its 3rd season, we decided to take a look at current trends in American jail design. But while the US is still putting away a record number of offenders, innovations in prison design are fairly scarce.

What we did manage to find was an explanation, with pictures (scroll down past the encyclopedic text) of the evolution of prison designs from 1790 to the present. Designs with names like the Radial, the Panopticon, the Taggert Fortress and the Metro, it seems, are now giving way to the Pod (think Oz).

What we couldn't find were detailed images of the insides of these designs. We do know of one sure-fire way to see the inside of a prison, but that's not a step we're willing to take for research....