The Inmates Are Running Venezuela’s Prisons. They’ve Created Autonomous Micro-Dictatorships.

The documentary La Causa is a raw look into these self-organized societies, complete with taxes, courts, and a strict “thug code.” ------------------ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: Like us on Facebook: Follow us on Twitter: Reason is the planet’s leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to for a point of view you won’t get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ---------------- The inmates have overtaken many prisons in Venezuela, armed with automatic weapons and grenades. They are governed by criminal gangs led by a “pran,“ or kingpin, who strictly enforces the “thug code“ by which all prisoners must abide, or they will be shot in various body parts. It’s too dangerous for guards or federal troops to enter, so they patrol the perimeter and train their rifles on any inmate who tries to leave.  Inside the walls, the prisoners have