Prisons in Venezuela. The fifth circle of hell

[naaman fletcher]

The standoff at El Rodeo has drawn attention to the conditions of Venezuela’s prisons, which Hugo Chávez, the president, has famously called “the gateway to the fifth circle of hell”. When he was inaugurated in 1999—five years after the end of his own jail stint for leading an attempted coup—22,000 inmates were crammed into prisons built for 17,000. Mr Chávez promised a “humanisation” programme.

Instead, the problem has worsened on his watch. Crime has soared, increasing the courts’ caseload. A legal reform in 2005 increased the share of alleged criminals who must await trial behind bars. As a result, the prison population has swollen to over 50,000—of whom three-fifths have not even been sentenced. The interior ministry has completed just two of the 15 new jails it has promised to build by 2012, with a capacity of only 1,200 inmates. Prisoners routinely launch mass hunger strikes to demand better conditions.


As overcrowding has increased, the state’s control of the jails has weakened. It has not invested enough in facilities or employed trained prison guards, and has cut back the routine inspections needed to fight illicit activity. With little risk of punishment, many more guards began profiting by allowing drugs and guns into the jails. Around 2002, when a group of prans, or gang bosses, reached agreement on an internal self-government that taxed fellow inmates, the prisoners became better-organised than their minders were.

That has turned the jails into a virtual state within a state. Since 1999 almost 5,000 prisoners have been killed. Guns have replaced home-made knives as the weapon of choice. Kidnapping, extortion and drug-trafficking rings are run from the jails by mobile phone. Prisoners pay a monthly fee to their pran, who determines where they sleep, what they eat and whether they live or die. According to El Universal, a newspaper, at the average prison these payments total $2.5m a year.

http://www.economist.com/node/18958990?story_id=18958990&fsrc=rss

For the people.