04 June 2011

VENEZUELA: Anything Goes...In Chavez's Margarita Island Prison.

NYTIMES/ S.Romero
2 screen read combined

  NYT:    "It is not uncommon for armed inmates to exercise a certain degree of autonomy in Venezuela’s penitentiaries. Prisoners with BlackBerries and laptops have arranged drug deals, abductions and murders from their cells, the police say, a legacy of decades of overcrowding, corruption and insufficient guards.
     But San Antonio prison, renowned on Margarita Island as a relatively tranquil place where even visitors can go for sinful weekend partying, is in a class of its own."
   “The state has lost control of the prisons in Venezuela,” said Carlos Nieto, director of Window to Freedom.