Lying down is a luxury for people deprived of liberty in Venezuela’s preventive and criminal detention centers. Overcrowding forces inmates to take turns sleeping and even walking. Takin in some sun is not an option either. But there is a problem that, along with overcrowding, is affecting the health of detainees: malnutrition and tuberculosis.
The Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons has reported on cases of inmates who have been infected with tuberculosis inside Venezuelan prisons, along with a high rate of malnutrition accentuated during the quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic that places the prison population in a situation of greater vulnerability to any disease.
Since 1999, 7,270 prisoners have died in Venezuelan jails, according to figures from the Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons. 104 inmates have died so far in 2020, 66 of them from malnutrition and tuberculosis.
