With the hope of a prisoner swap fading, former WNBA player Brittney Griner is now being transferred to a Russian penal colony, according to her lawyers.
While information specific to Griner is sparse, experts describe horrifying conditions in Russian penal colonies—gulag-like camps with harsh work hours, meager accommodations, and frequent abuse. Further, according to one former inmate, Griner's status as an openly gay American is likely to make serving her sentence particularly difficult. With the possibility of a prisoner swap appearing more and more unlikely, Griner could very well spend nearly a decade within a Russian penal colony—facing conditions some experts describe as even worse than those in American prisons.
