In this section, you will find 3D virtual reconstructions of ISIS prisons, as well as investigations and reports regarding the prisons for which the ISIS Prisons Museum was unable to produce a reconstruction. The information published here has been cross-examined with witness testimonies, satellite imaging, and forensic analysis.

ISIS converted hundreds of buildings in Syria and Iraq into prisons. These included confiscated family homes, government buildings, and places of worship. Hundreds of thousands of victims were detained, tortured, and disappeared in these prisons.

The ISIS Prisons Museum team has identified five types of ISIS prison: Hisba Diwan prisons, security prisons, Islamic Police prisons, military prisons, and sharia court prisons. The IPM documented and filmed dozens of these buildings after the expulsion of ISIS. However, other buildings once used as prisons were destroyed by bombardment or were quickly restored and refurbished by their owners. In these cases, the IPM was unable to document the buildings.

Months, and sometimes years, of work went into the study and documentation of the prisons. To fully understand these sites, the IPM relied on the testimonies of former detainees and their families, in addition to the testimonies of residents in the towns and villages that ISIS controlled. Supplementing this, the IPM also examined documents retrieved from the prisons, and other locations used as courts, diwans, and administrative buildings by ISIS.

Documenting the ISIS prisons was not an easy task. Many of the sites were littered with mines planted by ISIS, making documentation extremely dangerous. Moreover, in some cases, the team entered buildings that appeared to have been used as prisons – based on the fortifications, writing on the walls, and the torture tools found there – but were unable to meet survivors to gather further information..