The Iranians tend to dispense with the need for prisons, either through such judicial practices such as stoning, or by ensuring that prison survivability is low.
Besides which there are such things as undocumented prisoners and a lack of habeus corpus.
But that isn't the issue is it? Iran is a country which uses children as human waves to clear minefields. As was said earlier, life is cheap.

No... Clancy was simply assuming that the already-tried technique would continue to be attempted until successful. Mass-media also portrayed this technique long before Clancy used it in Debt of Honor in 1994.

It is particularly curious that at the same time Clancy was writing this novel, the same basic scenario was being discussed as part of the panel that produced the report Terror 2000: The Future Face of Terror. The suicide hijacking scenario did not appear in the final report, but it was part of the discussions that led to it.

Samuel Byck - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Also discussed here: A Brief History of Suicide Hijackings - Part I


The 1981 film Escape from New York contained similar memes. This time, a lone white female terrorist hijacks Air Force One on behalf of a workers terrorist organisation, the National Liberation Front of America. She crashes the plane into a skyscraper in lower Manhattan in a cinema moment that would be repeated for real 20 years later.
This and other incidents are discussed here:
A Brief History of Suicide Hijackings - Part II


Then, in the 1990s, Islamic militants picked up the idea of suicide hijackings... attempting at least 2 such actions before 2001. A Brief History of Suicide Hijackings - Part III

Plenty of people seemed to disappear after the pro democracy demos following Dinnerjackets last election, whilst a lot of people such as Mousavi and Karroubi have been held without trial under house arrest. Even Europeans are not immune from disappearing without their embassy's being informed as happened to a former work colleague.

The vast majority of the conscript army are no better than cannon fodder, just like they were during the Iran Iraq war. My brother in law had to spend two years as a conscript after getting his engineering degree. Sickness was rampant in his barracks whilst conscripts only had one change of clothing per week. After basic training was over many of the conscripts went on to guard museums and banks, whilst he went on to do basic admin tasks in an office. That doesn't mean to say that the Revolutionary Guards etc are in the same boat though.