According to a 1967 text, food was scarce and conditions harsh, including corporal punishment and shackles for prisoners working outside the walls.

Members of the Iron Guard served time at Botoșani, including several who were executed in September 1939, following the assassination of Armand Călinescu; their skeletons were discovered in 1963.

Previously, it had served as a barracks for the most part, with stints as a military warehouse and an officers’ school, before being used by the Securitate secret police in 1949–1957.

The objective was to apply pressure on often-exhausted prisoners to repent of their affiliation with banned political parties, sometimes dangling the prospect of freedom in case of cooperation.

Applying methods tested in communist China, prisoners would be made to proclaim their loyalty to the regime, their solidarity with one another broken and their status as dissidents eliminated.

Cooperative detainees received lighter treatment, such as goods they had not enjoyed for years, and were obliged to sign an agreement to continue serving the regime.

One such prisoner was Alexandru Paleologu, who had to write two "very violent and brutal" articles against exile writers Mihail Fărcășanu (a former friend) and Emil Cioran.