Moody said in the fourth book that using any unforgivable is a one way ticket to Azkaban.

As far as I have seen, that is the only point when we get to know what is the criteria for someone being imprisoned in Azkaban. What about thieves or robbers? Would they be subjected to the same treatment murderers get? Would they even be sent to Azkaban or are there some small level wizarding prisons?

Does Azkaban have different levels of security? Perhaps one where dementors aren't even roaming. Someone, if steals something out of need, doesn't really deserve to be subjected to the horrors of dementors.

Basically I am planning to probably go for a fic where I would need to show Azkaban more than Hogwarts. And I need to make sure how I portray it as realistic. I never expected Azkaban to be one big building with no windows closed from all sides (as shown in OotP).

How did you think Azkaban would be like when you first heard about it? What are the measures preventing it from being breached?

PS: Thoughts on the thing in the bold above?

 

I always saw it as one big building with no windows, exactly like it was shown in OotP. Basically, an old sealed up castle converted into a prison. Would have to have the dementors of course, guards to control the dementors and take care of feeding and such. Anti-apparation wards (and anti-any other sort of travel wards). Muggle repelling charms, maybe a large-scale illusion as well to hide it from wizards? Unplottable. You can get creative with wards if you want; I basically think of it as having every possible protection the Ministry can think of.

If you want to get into the personnel a bit more, the guards probably hate it there - it's a shithole and they're constantly around dementors and insane inmates. It's one of the lowest paid, shittiest jobs in the wizarding world - not some elite auror post. The aurors might be on call in order to help in a prison break, but I don't think any would actually be stationed on the island.

And no, there are no "minimum security" prisons. There is Azkaban. That is all. You rob someone, you go to Azkaban. You kill someone, you go to Azkaban. You get any sort of prison time, it's in Azkaban. Pretty effective crime deterrent imo. There are no levels of Azkaban with no dementors either. The only difference between inmate treatment is the duration of their incarceration.

 

As to the structure of Azkaban, there have been a ton of fics with unique buildings. Renegade Cause has Azkaban drawing its power from a 'spire' which is strange and magical in and of itself. I've also seen it as group of broken down old buildings with the only real defense being bars and dementors.

Really, in your own fanfiction, make Azkaban however you want it to be. Just don't include a lordship of the island. Ever.

 

Coleam hit the nail on the head. I think the fact that there's no low-level incarceration system adds to the overall terror of the place. A few seconds in the presence of one was enough to make Harry pass out; a whole day surrounded by numerous dementors is probably horrible, much less any extended sentence.

Keep in mind that the only defenses against a dementor are focusing on one's innocence and being an animagus. I don't like the idea that an occlumens can simply block off their effects by putting up teh barrierz, whether guilty or not. Just like there's a difference between a cutting curse and Sectumsempra, establish a difference between Legilimency and the dementor effect. It'll give you more to write about, compared to a character who's built up a tolerance to the dementors.

 

When I first read about Azkaban, I imagined the levels of security being organized by floor and density of Dementors. ie. upper levels have fewest Dementors and the lower you go, the more Dementors there are resulting in a heavier atmosphere of misery. But that was with my original vision of Azkaban as some sort of underground bunker with only the top level visible on the island. It doesn't really mesh well with the tall tower on an island concept.

 

Either way the actual structure is built, I think the main point of Azkaban is that both the 'punishment' and 'incarceration' aspects are almost completely taken by dementors. Its not the bars or the building or the wards or the wizards, its the soul sucking beasts who are the main point of the place.

You can add extra things, like an auror outpost or magical objects etc, but the main focus of any expedition to Azkaban should always be dememtors.

 

Interesting thing to note, canon puts Azkaban just off the cost of Holland.

 

Meaning it's only a prelude to what lies beyond?

 

I was unaware this had been subject to the 'word of god' treatment. The actual quote from the PoA is worded in a such a way that Azkaban is logically between Benelux and the UK.

 

I always used the film's depiction (three point tower with a hollow center).

The Dementors would live in the lowest level and the bottom of the center pit, with maximum security prisoners on level two, life sentence prisoners on level three, etc. up until the top floor where the Auror's would have they're living quarters (as far from Dementors as possible) and the only quick entrance/exit to the prison (either Floo or Vanishing Cabinet) that lead to the DMLE at the Ministry.

 

Er -

Are these both canon? They're contradictory. I can't imagine a prison would have more protections going into it than away from it. It was given than Sirius swam, iirc, so where does the flying thing come from?

 

What possible reason could they have for putting protections on the inside? Sirius is supposedly the only person to have gone to Azkaban for a long period and remained sane, never mind break out of the place. Besides that, if anyone bar an animagus tried to escape they'd have to deal with the massive number of Dementors first.

 

Well, figure that we're talking about a human shaped like a dog, not an actual dog. Sirius might have used some human intelligence to assist the effort, like finding some bit of floating debris that could serve as a makeshift raft.

Or you could invent even more elaborate escape techniques - might Sirius have found a wand on his way out of Azkaban? Alternately, maybe he swam to a merchant ship (bound for England) and found a way to get aboard.

 

Ah - no, the phrasing of 'only' flying. The middle of the north sea / swimming arguments could have nothing but conjecture, but I wondered if it explicitly stated somewhere you could only fly and how that tied in to Sirius' escape in JKR's head. My canon-fu has been better. It does make sense, I just wasn't looking at the most obvious conclusion.

An argument that can be applied to putting further protections on it at all. Why would you break into the prison if it's inhabitants are all insane? From what we see, Voldemort is the only person who ever succeeds and perhaps the only person who even tries. Azkaban is a place that people do not want to go to. You put protections on the inside, though, because it's a prison - not everyone in the wizarding world is as daft as Fudge and presumably in the creation of this 'hell on earth' someone decided that failsafes (such as putting it in the North Sea, putting bars on the cells, restricting magical access, etc) might be a good idea, Dementors or no.

But as to making it easier to enter rather than leave, it isn't even a case of 'protections' on the interior, it's a case of safety and conveniance: restricting escape routes is common sense, yeah, but considering that Azkaban is for the most part a one-way-trip, why not make it easier to transport prisoners there? Flying in formation without the use of an Imperius sounds a little risky if you're dealing with the most dangerous people in the magical world, surrounded by guards holding wands. A single, well-organised one-way portkey would kill a hundred miles worth of potential escape attempts. Easier in, harder out.

(@Sesc: and Fudge would fly there because he couldn't travel away from it if he went magically, I suppose)

 

I've tried to find some stories on the internet about dogs swimming to shore after falling off boats, and there aren't too many. I found a reference to one Australian dog who fell overboard and had to swim five miles to an island.

So yeah, it does look Sirius would be fucked without some major degree of help, or without Azkaban being very close to shore, even if we assume that he could go much longer than five miles. Even at 100km, I think the dog would have needed to find something on which he could heave most of his bodyweight out of the water.

Incidentally there's one endurance swimmer (Martin Strel) who managed to swim 313 mi / 505 km over 84 hours "nonstop," but that's obviously an extreme case. Plus the dude's swim was undoubtedly current-assisted, because he was swimming down the Danube.