Azkaban

"They don't need walls and water to keep the prisoners in, not when they're trapped inside their own heads, incapable of a single cheerful thought. Most go mad within weeks."

- Description of Azkaban prison

Azkaban is a fortress on an island in the middle of the North Sea. It serves the magical community of Great Britain as a prison for convicted criminals. Azkaban was built in the 15th century and it has been in use as a detention facility since 1718. Using certain Charms, Azkaban is hidden from the Muggle world, and is Unplottable.

As of Eldritch Diggory's visit in the 1730s or 1740s, a graveyard had been established on the island to accommodate those who have died in the prison. Most of the prisoners inside its walls died of despair, having lost the will to live. This is due to the presence of Dementor guards on the island. Dementors drain people of all happiness and leave them with their worst memories, long-term exposure can also lead to insanity.

While other wizarding prisons exist, such as Nurmengard (which was used exclusively to hold its creator Gellert Grindelwald), Azkaban is the only known fortress to be the "official" holding ground for wizarding criminals.

History
"Those who entered to investigate refused afterwards to talk of what they had found inside, but the least frightening part of it was that the place was infested with dementors."

- J. K. Rowling regarding the island Azkaban is located on The island in the North Sea on which the wizard prison is built has never appeared on any map, wizard or Muggle. Perhaps its first resident, or even creator, Ekrizdis, practised the worst kinds of Dark magic and constructed a fortress on the island, luring Muggle sailors there to torture and murder them. After his death, the various concealment charms placed on the island faded, and the Ministry of Magic became aware of the mysterious site's existence. Those who entered the deserted fortress to investigate discovered, among other horrors, an infestation of Dementors. The wizarding authorities of the time considered destroying the fortress, but, fearing reprisal by the dark entities or the island itself, decided against such action, and the Ministry allowed the sizeable colony to remain; the island was thus left unmolested and unchecked for many years, perhaps decades, until the International Statute of Secrecy was established.

Due to the impracticality of using small, local prisons, which could result in bangs, smells and light shows if inmates escaped, plans for a single, purpose-built wizarding prison on some remote Hebridean island were made at the passing of the International Statute of Secrecy. However, when Damocles Rowle was elected Minister for Magic in 1718, he insisted on using Azkaban instead, seeing the Dementors as a potential asset: putting them to work as guards would save expense, time, and lives. This plan was eventually put into motion and, despite protests, Azkaban remained the prison of the wizarding world until the Second Wizarding War, primarily due to its zero breakout rate. From that point on, the Dementors served the Ministry as the guards of Azkaban, as the arrangement allowed them to feed on the emotions of the prisoners within its walls. Opposition to the use of Azkaban did manifest, however. Somewhere between 1733 and 1747 Minister Eldritch Diggory visited Azkaban, and was horrified at the inhumane levels of despair and insanity that the Dementors induced in the prisoners. He formed a committee to find alternative solutions or mitigating measures, the least of which was to remove the Dementors; even this, however, met opposition from those who feared a mainland invasion if the Dementors were deprived of their food source. Diggory died of Dragon Pox while in office, and thus the campaign to find an alternative to Azkaban's Dementors stalled. Reversing his predecessor's position, when Minister Hesphaestus Gore took office the prison was renovated and reinforced. No serious opposition to the continued use of the prison arose in the next few centuries, and no Minister considered closing the prison until the Ministry of Kingsley Shacklebolt began major reforms of the entire Ministry in 1998.

Since 1717, using any of the three Unforgivable Curses on another human being has carried the punishment of a life sentence in Azkaban (unless there is sufficient evidence that the caster did so under the influence of the Imperius Curse, or legal exceptions made by the Ministry of Magic as in the case of Aurors in the First Wizarding War).

Azkaban earned a reputation as a horrific place, mostly due to the prison's guards: Dementors. Because of these creatures, most prisoners eventually went insane and slowly died under the Dementors' depressive influence, having lost their will to live and even stopped eating. Even those who survived to be released would remain traumatised by their experiences within the prison: Marvolo Gaunt was left heavily weakened during his six-months sentence, which may have been a contributing factor to his early death, while Rubeus Hagrid can remember how miserable he was there even long after his release. Even Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange's physical appearances are telltale signs of their deterioration within the prison, losing most of their great aristocratic looks. The Dementors' primary concern was their supply of human emotions to feed upon, and disregarding the prisoners' release terms, they seemed unhappy to let them go. However, many denizens of the wizarding community remained happy that it was the Dementors who guard the prisoners, believing that they are what keeps these dangerous elements inside the remote fortress.

Pre-1998
"He claimed that the Dementors living there were an advantage: they could be harnessed as guards, saving the Ministry time, trouble and expense."

- Security before the end of the Second Wizarding War

Azkaban was guarded by Dementors until most of them revolted and joined Lord Voldemort in summer of 1995. As a result, Voldemort's Death Eaters escaped en masse to rejoin their master in both 1996 and 1997.

There is most likely an Anti-Apparition jinx on Azkaban; if there were not, wizards and witches could simply Apparate from the prison to the outside world. However, since it is debatable that most witches and wizards need a wand to Apparate, this may be irrelevant, as none of the prisoners maintain possession of their wands. Before 1995, most of the prisoners would barely have had enough strength to Apparate anyway, as the mere presence of Dementors, particularly in large numbers, inhibits the use of magical powers.

Before the Dementors' revolt, the only people ever to escape the prison were Barty Crouch Jr and Sirius Black, in 1982 and 1993, respectively. Barty Crouch Jr was smuggled out by his father, Barty Crouch Snr, and replaced by his dying mother using Polyjuice Potion, while Sirius was able to escape by changing into his Animagus form of a dog. The revolt has severely compromised the security, as multiple escapes were made with no more Dementors guarding the prison; the Ministry continued omitting certain facts to maintain their facade of having everything under control, including keeping one breakout a secret. There is a graveyard on the island outside the wall of Azkaban where the Dementors buried prisoners who died. However, if the dead prisoner has a relative who is not a criminal, the relative in question has the right to pick up the corpse for a proper burial, as Barty Crouch Snr had the right to pick up the body that was disguised as his son, though he chose not to due to fear of being exposed of committing a jailbreak.

Although the prison is in the middle of the ocean with iron walls protecting it, it was unnecessary to keep prisoners inside, as Remus Lupin stated, because the prisoners were already trapped in their own heads due to the intense depression caused by the Dementors. As Sirius indicated, most prisoners went insane after a short while, and some even stopped eating, preferring death to their lives within Azkaban. Dementors fed the prisoners, indicating the prisoners might have felt depression at mealtimes.

Visits to the island are heavily restricted, as only respectable Ministry officials were noted to be allowed to visit any possible relatives. An example is when Barty Crouch Snr and his wife were allowed a deathbed visit to their imprisoned son due to the former's high status in the government; they took advantage of this privilege to smuggle Barty Jr out of prison. The Minister for Magic is also allowed to visit the prison, as to check out on certain prisoners for their conditions, as Cornelius Fudge did on Sirius Black. Arthur Weasley visited Azkaban on business once.

After the Battle of Hogwarts
"Under Kingsley Shacklebolt, Azkaban was purged of Dementors. While it remains in use as a prison, the guards are now Aurors, who are regularly rotated from the mainland. There has been no breakout since this new system was introduced."

- Azkaban after the Second Wizarding War

After the end of the Second Wizarding War and Kingsley Shacklebolt's appointment as Minister for Magic in 1998, dementors were no longer employed as guards of Azkaban. This was likely because they had proven to be untrustworthy, and because the depression and madness their presence caused in prisoners was considered inhumane.

Ever since they were removed, Aurors have been guarding the prison, taking turns so that a certain number of Aurors are assigned to stand guard, before leaving to return to fieldwork, with other Aurors taking their place. It is unknown how many surviving Voldemort supporters and Death Eaters were imprisoned in the aftermath. Them aside, any Ministry officials who knowingly and willingly went with Voldemort's ideologies during the time when the Ministry was under his control, mainly the Muggle-Born Registration Commission, were sentenced to Azkaban, the most prominent being Dolores Umbridge, for her crimes against humanity (and, more specifically, Muggle-borns).

Known Azkaban inmates
"We have confirmed that ten high security prisoners, in the early hours of yesterday evening, did escape. And of course, the Muggle Prime Minister has been alerted to the danger. We strongly suspect that the breakout was engineered by a man with personal experience in escaping from Azkaban; notorious mass murderer Sirius Black, cousin of the escapee Bellatrix Lestrange."

- Cornelius Fudge interview to the Daily Prophet, January 1996

Etymology
The name Azkaban is inspired by the Hebrew word Abaddon, meaning 'place of destruction' or 'depths of hell' and also draws inspiration from the Prison of Alcatraz off the coast of San Francisco. It may also derive from the name of the Russian town Abakan, which has historically been occupied by various groups of exiles.

Behind the scenes

 * In the books, Azkaban is perhaps the most prolific and detailed location to never appear. It was referenced often in the books, but except the cover of one copy of the third book, it never appeared in an image in the books. This is because, unlike the movies, the books were told almost exclusively through the eyes of Harry Potter, who never visited or had been in Azkaban.
 * There is an added scene in in which the 1996 mass breakout at Azkaban is shown. This scene marks the first and last ever appearance of Azkaban.
 * In, Azkaban is on an island, but the island cannot be seen due to the stormy sea surrounding the tower.
 * In the front cover of the adult Bloomsbury edition of the third book, Azkaban is shown to be a rectangular tower, and in the fifth film it is more of a triangular tower.
 * It is likely that if Sirius's status as an Animagus was known, the Ministry would have taken precautions to prevent him from transforming to escape. This would mean that Azkaban's security measure is not fully enforced for every situation at all times, assuming that the protection with Dementors is secure enough.
 * Escaping from Azkaban is a serious offence, punishable by the worse-than-death Dementor's Kiss. Sirius Black was fated to this, if he had not been rescued beforehand, and Bartemius Crouch Jr suffered from it when his escape became public. Such a punishment is probably because the escaped prisoners in question are too dangerous to be simply reconfined into the prison, as they could easily escape again.
 * Prisoners from Azkaban have their place card numbers tattooed on their neck and have pictures of them taken with their official number.
 * There are no human personnel (guards, officials etc.) in Azkaban other than prisoners. All prisoners, as seen in the films, wear white shirts with grey stripes.This is because Dementors are mentioned to be pure enough to contain the prisoners in the walls of the prison and likeliest no human personnel would manage to bear working in such a depressed place. However, Kingsley Shacklebolt purged Azkaban entirely of Dementors and replaced them with Aurors.
 * Access to Azkaban is strictly prohibited to all people except high-ranked Ministry officials, and only they are granted permission to enter the prison and visit prisoners, although this is very rare.
 * Azkaban prisoners are brought to prison by Aurors, making Aurors the only officials who regularly visit the prison but only to hand over prisoners (before they replaced the Dementors as guards). Dawlish was said to be escorting prisoners.
 * Being an unregistered Animagus is punishable by a sentence in Azkaban, as Hermione Granger threatened to expose Rita Skeeter as one to the authorities. This also enforces the possibility of Azkaban taking special precautions to Animagi only if they are aware of their unauthorised ability, as Sirius was not given such precaution.
 * Being in possession of a "true" Time-Turner, one that allows the user to travel back into the past beyond the five-hours safety boundary, is punishable by a sentence in Azkaban, as Theodore Nott was placed in Ministry custody upon being found in possession of a prototype, and Harry Potter noted that Draco Malfoy in possessing the finalised version would have been sentenced as well had the Ministry found out.

Notes and references
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