The General Penitentiary of Venezuela is one of the most dangerous prisons in the world (Image: Capitolio)
According to Daily Star UK, a new film has revealed information about “the world’s most dangerous prison” where armed guards are too scared to enter and inmates run drug stalls.
The General Penitentiary of Venezuela in Guarico State in the north of the South American country is notorious for its brutality with prisoners running drug businesses inside the jail, huge raves and parties par for the course and family members of inmates coming and going as they please, including children.
Gay prisoners are also forced to live on the roof.
Andrés Figueredo Thomson has directed La Causa, which translates as “the cause” in English, and he spent eight years in the jail making the film.
The prison is run by inmates and armed guards are too scared to enter (Image: Capitolio)
The Venezuelan Prisons Observatory even revealed recently some prisoners were forced to kill a Rottweiler for food as there was nothing else to eat.
US-based Andrés said: “Seeing inmates with weapons, with grenades, the smell. Literally excrement coming from the walls. Absolutely deplorable conditions.
“It was like a war zone. A post-apocalyptic thing. To see children going in and out of the prison, being around guns.
“There was a guy selling crack with a baby in his arms.”
The prison, like others in South America, is governed by criminal gangs.
Drug gangs operate in the prison
The film’s name derives from the word criminal kingpins inside the prison use for the tax on contraband such as drugs and guns that inmates have brought inside.
If they fail to pay, they are then sent to the “church” which is described as a prison within the prison.
But Andres said despite all this, prisoners are so terrified of what will happen to them if they cross the line, trouble rarely breaks out.
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Source: Daily Star UK
