VENEZUELA:
Bloody Prison Riots Not a Thing of the Past
Humberto Márquez

CARACAS,  (IPS) - Eight inmates were killed and at least 15 injured Tuesday in a prison riot in eastern Venezuela, said officials. Rival gangs were reportedly fighting for control of the Puente Ayala penitentiary, 260 km east of Caracas.

"Three groups were trying to gain control of the prison since Monday night, which led to a fight that continued until National Guard troops occupied the jail and got the situation under control," said the local National Guard commander in that area, General Jesús Bermúdez.

The problem "is that for a long time now, the state has forgotten about the prisoners, and they form their own self-governments to control the prisons and impose their own kind of order," Humberto Prado, head of the non-governmental Venezuelan Prisons Observatory, told IPS.

Weapons used in clashes between individual prisoners or gangs of inmates include homemade "shanks", firearms and even hand grenades.

Although the Puente Ayala prison in the town of Barcelona was built to house 600 inmates and currently holds just 300, it is in such bad condition that the prisoners are crammed into only a few overcrowded cell blocks.

"A major problem there is the lack of classification of prisoners, with those accused of minor offenses mixed in with dangerous criminals, and first-time offenders with repeat offenders. That is a key component in generating violence," said Prado. Pre-trial detainees are also mixed in with convicted criminals.

In Venezuela there are 19,000 inmates in 30 prisons, nearly half of whom have not yet been sentenced -- a problem that is common throughout Latin America.

Prado pointed out that so far this year, at least 340 prisoners have been murdered, "because the state is incapable of guaranteeing the right to life in prisons."

More than one inmate a day is murdered on average, said the activist. "In 2004, 400 prisoners were killed. By contrast, in neighbouring Colombia, which has been caught up in an armed conflict for decades and has 80,000 people behind bars, only 15 prisoners a year are murdered," said Prado.

Venezuela boasts that it was the first country in the world to abolish capital punishment, in 1863. But being thrown into prison in this country often amounts to a de facto death penalty.

Meanwhile, prisoners threaten to go on hunger strike, sew their lips together, or slash their arms and legs to demand the legal benefits to which they are entitled by law. For example, a person accused of a crime may not be detained for longer than the possible minimum sentence for that crime, nor for longer than 2 years.

Inmates are demanding faster processing of their cases on the part of judges, prosecutors and parole boards, which can grant release to prisoners who have spent two years in pretrial detention or who have served out part of their sentence and have earned good conduct credits.

Last year, relatives of inmates shut themselves in with the prisoners on visiting days to protest and demand legal benefits for them, with more than 200 family members -- including women and children -- being held in a penitentiary for a whole week at one point.

Reports that a hunger strike had been declared by inmates in the Penitenciaría General de Venezuela, the country's largest jail, located in the central plains region, and that prisoners in other institutions were following suit were refuted by the government.

Deputy Minister of the Interior and Justice Yuri Pimentel said no hunger strike had been declared, although he admitted that inmates were organising one, apparently to protest the death of a prisoner named Rafael Rodríguez.

The inmates say it was the assistant director of the prison, Luis Aquino, himself who shot and killed Rodríguez after the prisoner climbed up to the roof of the Penitenciaría General to demand the legal provisions to which he was entitled.

Pimentel reported that Aquino had been dismissed.

A hunger strike movement is also being organised in the prisons of Vista Hermosa in the southeast and El Rodeo I and II, near Caracas, according to radio reports.

Pimentel said that "there are people involved who have tried to agitate the prisoners and create situations of conflict, at times taking advantage of very legitimate complaints by the inmates, to smear the government ahead of the Dec. 3 elections," in which leftist President Hugo Chávez is slated to win a second six-year term.

Prado pointed out that the government, the judiciary and the public prosecutor's office had declared an emergency situation in July to attempt to solve the problem of the slow pace of justice, but added that "the inmates pay for any delays with their lives."

Nevertheless, the situation has improved somewhat over the past few years. In 1999, roughly 70 percent of inmates were pending sentencing, according to the U.S. State Department's country report on human rights practices released in February 2000. That portion has shrunk to below 50 percent today.

And under the new criminal procedures code that went into force in 1999, prisoners accused of petty crimes who have not been convicted but have already served two years or the minimum sentence possible for that crime are to be released following a psychiatric examination.

Prado argued that in order to expedite and facilitate such efforts, the government should decentralise the prisons, turn their administration over to the provincial governments, and hire, as guards and administrative workers in the prisons, the graduates of a specialised higher learning institute that operates next to a jail in Caracas.

Only a small number of the hundreds of criminal justice administration graduates have jobs in their field. Meanwhile, the immense majority of prison guards have inadequate training.

In Venezuela, prison guards are hired by the Ministry of the Interior and Justice and the militarised National Guard is posted outside of the prisons but is sometimes called in to quell riots.