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Holmesburg Prison

Low
Verified 22 May 2026
Fresh · 8d ago

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Photograph of Holmesburg Prison

Background

Holmesburg Prison, given the nickname "The Terrordome," was a prison operated by the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Department of Prisons (PDP) from 1896 to 1995. The facility is located at 8215 Torresdale Avenue in the Holmesburg section of Philadelphia. It was decommissioned in 1995 when it closed. As of today, the structure still stands and is occasionally used for prisoner overflow and work programs. It was the site of controversial decades-long dermatological, pharmaceutical, and biochemical weapons research projects involving testing on inmates.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

Current population

Occupancy

Year opened

Operational

Facility profile

Operator

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

Region

Security level

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Contact & address

No public contact details available.

Conditions Risk Score

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Insufficient data
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Data completeness

16%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources