Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the solitary confinement cells; the segregation area.

1935		D. Lamson We Who Are About to Die 100: Siberia differs from the shelf only slightly; I believe that in Siberia you have a cell pardner, and on the shelf you are alone. Letters come to you either place, but letter writing may be restricted. You get no books in either case, but you are allowed tobacco in Siberia.
1936		(ref. to 1920s) L. Duncan Over the Wall 271: The exultance of getting out of ‘Siberia,’ as the bullpen was called.
1936		San Quentin Bulletin in L.A. Times 6 May 7: SIBERIA, solitary confinement cells.
1974		‘John le Carré’ Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 77: Guillam departed for the siberias of Brixton.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 318: Siberia was a tank of regular cells stripped of amenities, including mattresses, and devoid of all privileges.
2000		Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Siberia: Isolation unit (LA County Jail).
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 166/2: Siberia n. 1 = pound, the sense 1 2 (from sense 1) the segregation area of a prison.

2. Clinton Prison, Dannemora, New York.

1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 169: Siberia. – A prison where the discipline is unusually harsh. Usually applied to Clinton Prison, Dannemora, N.Y., to which institution are sent those convicts known to be refractory and hard to control, and where discipline is stern and unrelenting, and the climate severe.
1978		H. Selby Jr Requiem for a Dream (1987) 171: All the joints upstate and especially Dannemora which is really a fuckin Siberia. [Ibid.] 174: This one guy in Danamora [...] He was in that fuckin Siberia so long man he forgot what a woman looked like.

3. Sing Sing Penitentiary, New York.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

4. in a job, an undesirable out-station.

1939		L.M. Limpus Honest Cop 277: With the suicide of Inspector Charles L. Neidig, following his transfer to ‘Siberia’ in Queens, at least 50 per cent of the force of 19,000 was reported fearful.
1947		L.J. Valentine Night Stick 111: Acting Captain Bernard F. McQuade [...] found himself a lieutenant—‘somewhere in Siberia’ .
1957		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 6 July 13: These Negro ‘compounds’ [...] are really the police department Siberias where naughty boys in blue are sent [...] as punishment.
2023		Rayman & Blau Riker’s 261: They moved me to the Vernon C. Bain Center [(authors’ note) a jail on a boat on the East River] [...] He kept me up there for two and a half years. Siberia.

5. in a restaurant, the poorest table(s).

1971

E. Wilson Show Business Nobody Knows 10: At El Morocco the ultimate snobbism was provided by the ‘wrong side of the room"—the area beyondthe dance floor that divided the room. It was nicknamed Siberia.