Security & Strategic Review - August 2012 (ISSN 1741-4202)

Another prison riot has raised the number of deaths in Venezuela’s prisons since President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999 to 5,370, of which just under 11% took place since a special ministry for prisons was created in mid-2011. This has been taking place against a backdrop of rising violent crime in the country at large: the number of murders in the first half of this year was the highest on record.