Baradin Island Prison

Irisz - I found this brief write-up on the Baradin Island prison complex while doing some research. It's quite a bit out of date, but it gives some background on what we're looking at - Nikola

Located off the western coast of Fletcher's single supercontinent, Baradin Island was not initially seen as a promising site for colonisation. Cold, isolated in a stormy ocean with little arable land and the only significant local lifeform being a crocodile analogue, the only real interest that surveys of the island generated was in the form of mineral resources. Mining operations were first set up in the late 25th century and, while initially yielding  promising results, the mines were played out by the early 2700s. The mines were abandoned, with much of the infrastructure left to decay.

The Capellan annexation of Fletcher following the fall of the Star League bought a new life to the island. The Confederation saw it as a potential location for a maximum security prison, especially in light of their crackdowns on remaining Hegemony loyalists. Baradin Island was chosen for its isolation and harsh climate in order to discourage escape or, at the very least, reduce of an escapee actually making it to the mainland.

Construction was aided by using the played-out mineshafts as a basis, expanding on them and then converting them into an extensive subterranean complex. Showing a typically Capellan disregard for human life and conditions, the prison was designed to be entirely underground, with only a small above ground portion that served as access and administrative control. In the advent of a prison riot, the underground portions of the facility could be entirely sealed off in order to simply starve out the insurgents.

After its opening in the early 29th century, the Baradin Island became Fletcher's premier maximum security prison (a fact helped by the accidental destruction of the Hegemony era prison by nuclear weapons during a raid). Given the oft enthusiastic nature of the Cappelan criminal justice system, the prison quickly reached capacity, with overcrowding becoming common. Prisoners would occasionally be 'removed' by the Maskrovika, and rumors persisted of prisoners being 'disappeared' or used for experimentation.

When Fletcher was captured by the Federated Suns in the Fourth Succession War, the Davion forces found a dangerously overcrowded and run-down facility that was well below their standards for prisoner health and safety. Many of the prisoners (specifically former dissidents or those of a pro-Davion leaning) were released, while many more were relocated to other facilities. The Prison was deliberately allowed to decay, with several wings closed entirely as its population dwindled. It did remain in use as a maximum security facility, but now with far higher standards as to what sort of prisoner would be detained.

This 'begin neglect' took on a more sinister turn with the formation of the Chaos march and the collapse of Fletcher's planetary government into warring city states. Baradin Island, the prison and its population weren't immediately claimed by any one of the emergent factions, and was rather largely forgotten as the fighting escalated. As a result, the prison population was left to largely fend for themselves with limited resources, and a large number died either from starvation, violence or failed efforts to escape.

The Word of Blake largely left the prison be; while they cleaned out the surviving prisoners, they chose not to utilize the facility themselves. Instead, they built a number of re-education camps on Fletcher for their own purposes. Likewise, the former Fletcher hiring hall (and HPG station before that) was converted  into a detention centre for the mercenaries who had previously operated out of it. As such, the Baradin Island prison remained unused. This also meant that it was largely untouched by the fighting that occurred to liberate the world from the Word's control.

The end result was that Baradin Island was one of the few functional prisons left on the planet after by the end of the Jihad. And while the Republic were aware of the facility's dark past, they also had few choices but to use it. However, rather than let it turn into another overcrowded hellhole, the Republic's administration took lengths to renovate and improve the facility, doing their best to make its conditions more humane.

The prison remained in operation after the blackout, and then after the Davion annexation of Fletcher. There's very little on its use by the Capellans after their conquest of the planet, but from what I've gathered they've been using it to contain pro-Davion or pro-Republic elements, as well as several ''high value assets" who were on-world at the time.