World Prisons
All prisons

Venezuela

Maracaibo National Prison

Low
Verified 28 May 2026
Fresh · 1d ago

Data is aggregated from public sources and may be incomplete or out of date. Always verify with primary sources before acting on any figure. See data sources.

For families

How to send mail, money, and visit Maracaibo National Prison

Step-by-step guidance using the Venezuela system — addresses, money services, visit booking, what to bring on your first visit.

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Background

The Maracaibo National Prison (Sabaneta Prison) was a notoriously violent prison in the city of Maracaibo, Venezuela in the state of Zulia. It was operated by the Ministry of Prison Systems, most recently under minister Iris Varela, from 1958-2013. Typical of a Venezuelan prison, it was severely overcrowded, with inadequate access to medical care, food, and clean water, and violence among prisoners was common. Gangs of inmates had control over the prison, and were led by a "pran" (inmate leader). The prison was closed after 55 years of operation due to government intervention and is now being converted into a museum.

Source: Wikipedia article lead, CC-BY-SA.

Capacity

700

Current population

Occupancy

Year opened

Operational

Facility profile

Operator

Population held

Mixed/unknown

Opened

Region

Security level

Death-row facility

No

Conditions

No conditions summary available yet.

Visiting

No visiting information available.

Mailing

No mailing information available.

Practical info

Contact the operator's website for inmate-specific procedures.

Known issues

No major issues documented in our database.

Contact & address

No public contact details available.

Conditions Risk Score

Derived signal — not a judgement. How it's calculated

Insufficient data
We don't have enough public data on this facility to score it. Have something to add? Send us a correction.

Data completeness

16%

How many of our profile fields are populated. We surface this so families and researchers know the limits.

Sources