Abashiri Prison

In part to increase Japanese populations on the island as part of the Meiji Restoration, the Meiji government implemented penal transportation policies for Hokkaido in 1868. In April 1890, the Meiji government sent over a thousand political prisoners to the isolated Abashiri village. Many of these political prisoners were samurai from Tokugawa period who were convicted during the 1877 Satsuma rebellion. Prisoners were forced to perform a variety of tasks from carpentry to agriculture. In addition, convicts at Abashiri Prison were forced to build roads linking the area to the more populous south. Construction of Hokkaido's Central Road relied on penal labor from Hokkaido. Many prisoners died along one section of the road between Abashiri village and Asahikawa, causing it to be referred to as ''Prisoner's Road''. Initial conditions were extremely harsh, with insufficient food and rest, and over 200 prisoners died as a result of malnutrition, accidents, and as punishment for attempting to escape. The political advisor Kaneko Kentaro had previously submitted a report implying that the government was not responsible for providing funerary services to convicts who perished during the process of road building. The built environment facilitated discipline and surveillance, which was emphasized by the panopticon layout of the building. Most of the prison burned down in a 1909 fire, but it was reconstructed in 1912. ==Museum==

at the Abashiri Prison Museum, 2013 In 1983, older parts of the prison were relocated to the base of Mount Tento and operate as a museum called the . It is the only prison museum in the country. As of 2016, eight of the buildings preserved at the museum are designated Important Cultural Property by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, while three are registered Tangible Cultural Property. Those who visit the prison partake in dark tourism, tourism centered around areas significant because of death and suffering that occurred in those areas. ==Notable inmates==

• Tsuda Sanzō, the policeman who attempted to assassinate Nicholas II of Russia • Yoshie Shiratori, the only person to escape from Abashiri Prison • Kyuichi Tokuda, politician imprisoned at Abashiri from 1934 to 1940 • Kenji Miyamoto, politician • Shūsuke Nomura, activist • George Abe, author and former yakuza == In fiction ==

The 1965 film Abashiri Prison spawned a popular series of yakuza films featuring the prison. In the 1984 video game Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin: Ohotsuku ni Kiyu, nipopo dolls made by Abashiri Prison inmates play a role in the story. In the 2012 video game Yakuza 5, one of the protagonists, Taiga Saejima, is incarcerated at and escapes from Abashiri Prison. In "Mako Tanida", a 2014 episode of the television series The Blacklist, the episode's titular yakuza boss escapes from Abashiri Prison. The 2014 manga series Golden Kamuy, set shortly after the Russo-Japanese War, features a raid on Abashiri Prison as one of its major plot points. In the 2020 novel The Lost Future of Pepperharrow by Natasha Pulley, set in 1888 Japan, Abashiri Prison is one of the main plot locations. ==References==