Owner: American Government
Designation: Prison Facility
Affiliation: American Government
Brief:
Blackgate Penitentiary, also known as Blackgate Prison or Blackgate, is the officially prison facility for common criminals in Gotham City.
Situated on a small island off the coast of Gotham Bay and working in conjunction with the Arkham Asylum, Blackgate incarcerates criminals considered sane by institutional standards. As such, the facility at any one time contains various henchmen, mobsters, bounty hunters, assassins and mafia bosses as well as common criminals depending on the seriousness of their crime.
Originally one of two prison facilities in Gotham, the other being Gotham State Penitentiary, Blackgate was a secondary encarceration facility, with Gotham State Penitentiary being used as the primary correctional facility. In the late 1990s, the Blackgate facility was condemned by Amnesty International and forced to shut down. Following a series of renewals and updations it eventually re-opened, becoming officially known as "Blackgate Penitentiary" and, because of its secure location on a secluded island, Blackgate began to take prominence over Gotham State, until the latter became virtually unused.
When the Cataclysm earthquake that resulted in the destruction of Gotham occured, the resulting tidal waves damaged the prison structure and opened up a land bridge to Gotham. This allowed the majority of the inmates of Blackgate to escape.
Trivia[]
- The nickname for the penitentiary amongst the Gotham Police Department is "The Shreck"; derived from the German and Yiddish word "Schreck"/"Shreck", literally meaning "Fear" or "Terror."
- In spite of its high security, David Cain can easily enter and leave the facility without being noticed.
- There have been instances where inmates from Arkham Asylum are temporarily moved to Blackgate, and visa versa, as one facility or the other undergoes repairs or updations. One such instance was when Bane destroyed the original Arkham building. Resulting in all of the Arkham inmates being transfered to Blackgate until the new Arkham structure was built and Arkham re-opened.