PRISONERS KILL FOR CLOTHES TO BUY DRUGS

CARACAS (Reuters) - Prisoners in Venezuela's overcrowded and anarchic jails
are killing each other for their clothes, which are then used to buy drugs,
a top prison official said on Tuesday.

"In our prisons the inmates kill each other for a pair of shoes," Prisons
Director Evelisse Alvarez told Reuters. "We're trying to put a stop to the
mafias, which are dealing in clothes -- renting, stealing and exchanging
them for drugs," she said.

Clashes with guards and fights among rival gangs happen almost daily in
Venezuela's jails, where weapons and drugs circulate freely. Venezuelan
prisons averaged about six inmate deaths a week last year.

To combat the clothes-for-drugs trade, prison authorities have started
giving uniforms to the country's 25,000 inmates for the first time.

Alvarez said authorities have run into strong resistance to the new outfits,
khaki shorts and shirts and black sports shoes.

Local newspapers reported Tuesday that inmates at the Los Teques prison,
about 15 miles west of Caracas, had set fire to their uniforms in protest.

"We have to convince them that it makes them look more dignified, cleaner
and stops them selling their clothes for drugs," Alvarez said.

She added many inmates felt the uniforms made them look less manly. "One
prisoner asked me: 'What's my girlfriend going to say when she sees me in
this uniform?"'

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett