I was driving around San Pedro Sula, a manufacturing hub in Honduras, earlier today when I saw these improvised jail cells. They are made from shipping containers.

The Honduran who was with me said it was part of a private sector bid to alleviate its overcrowded prisons. Honduras, like the United States and many nations in Latin America, has severely overcrowded prisons. To date, the Honduran government hasn’t accepted the use of the container cells. So the modified containers sit rusting in a field.

Honduras isn’t the only nation that’s considered using recycled containers to house prisoners. Australia and New Zealand (click here and here) both have implemented this kind of prison housing. A news article from New Zealand earlier this year described the modified containers as “the cheapest and fastest way to build extra prison capacity as prisoner numbers reach all-time highs.”

But the issue still burns whether such housing is a sane way of recycling containers and a secure, cost-effective form of incarceration or a cruel way to confine inmates.

By the way, a little Googling on the subject led me to this site on futuristic ways to house prisoners.