The prison was built between 1842 and 1848, was commissioned in 1849 and was closed in 1995. The building was built by prison construction workers whose task was to build prisons in Sweden. The prison was the Dalarna County Prison and a prison of cells, which meant that the inmates was completely isolated from each other. The prison has undergone many reconstructions and renovations from 1849 to 1995, but the buildings exterior is still almost unchanged. Normally the prison held 63 inmates at a time,of wich both were men and women. During the Second World War, Falu Prison also held spy-convicted prisoners. At that time the number reached up to 147 inmates.
Few walls in this country have captured so many poor life event as Falu Prison. Here, Lars-Inge Svartenbrandt began his long jaw-dropping career, and once they even had a guillotine in the prison yard. To show the development of the correctional service from 1850 to 1995, we have created a museum in the basement of the building of which we offer guided tours of the prison and explanation to how the inmates lived while doing time here.
The prison scenes in the documentary about the mythical Svartenbrant has been recorded here. Svartenbant was first detained in Falu Prison in 1963. Svartenbant escaped the prison by climbing over the barbed wire wall which at the time was only about 10 feet tall. Today, the wall around the prison yard a little more than is 16 feet tall.
The prison is centrally located in Falun, only a 7 min walking distance from the main square in Falun and close to Lugnet – the sports and outdoor area with a frequently visited nature reserve. Lugnet offers over 65 different sport-activities that have their own halls and tracks, with the well-known National Ski Stadium - Riksskidstadion, with World Cup and Ski World Championships in Cross Country Skiing and Jumping. Lugnet has beautiful nature areas for outdoor activities like hiking or biking which are both for MTB and families or just for you who wants to come here and relax. It is not because of nothing it is called Lugnet (The Calm), where a large area has been set aside for nature reserves.
