Brittney Griner faces difficult conditions at the Russian penal colony

Weed-smuggler WNBA player Brittney Griner will enter a system of isolation, grueling labor, and psychological torment when she is transferred to a penal colony to fulfill a nine-year sentence handed down Tuesday in Moscow, former prisoners and advocates said. 

“Conditions in prisons and detention centers varied but were often harsh and life-threatening,” a 2021 State Department report on Russian human rights abuses said. “Overcrowding, abuse by guards and inmates, limited access to health care, food shortages, and inadequate sanitation were common in prisons, penal colonies, and other detention facilities.”