Holmesburg Prison
Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.
For families
How to send mail, money, and visit Holmesburg Prison
Step-by-step guidance using the United States system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.

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
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Operational
Facility profile
Operator
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Population held
Mixed/unknown
Opened
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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
Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated
Data completeness
16%How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.
Sources
- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation
- Wikipedia — Wikimedia Foundation
- See /data-sources for our overall methodology.