The Island of Sark, the smallest of the Channel Islands located between France and England, is home to the world’s smallest prison still in use today. There are no cars, no roads and no streetlights on Sark Island, but there the prison, which dates back to 1856. Featuring just two tiny cells — one measuring 6 feet by 6 feet and the other 6 feet by 8 feet — separated by a narrow corridor. In fact, it holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s smallest prison. It’s only fitting that an island measuring just under 3 miles long and less than a mile wide be home to the world’s smallest prison. The cells only have small, wood-slatted beds with thin mattresses for inmates to sleep on, and inmates can only be held here for a maximum of two days, after which they have to be transferred to the larger prison facilities on the neighboring Guernsey Island. The most famous inmate at Sark Prison was Andres Gardes, an unemployed French nuclear physicist who believed himself to be the rightful heir and owner of Sark Island. Since no one took his claims seriously, he decided to invade the island as a one-man army. He plastered the island with posters announcing his invasion, so when he finally arrived on Sark with a semiautomatic rifle, he was arrested, and his invasion thwarted. Although the world’s smallest prison has changed very little in terms of structure, it now has electricity and heating, so you could say it’s a bit more comfortable than it used to be. Still, there are no windows.
