E/CN.4/1997/7/Add.3 page 21 building and shooting or stabbing anyone trying to escape from the flames. According to reports, the events were witnessed by National Guard and prison officers, who failed to react, until the attackers had withdrawn and the flames had caused irretrievable damage. The case was being investigated by a military court. 70. More recently, on 22 October 1996, incidents occurred at the El Paraíso Re-education and Handicraft Centre in Caracas, which resulted in the death of about 25 detainees (burnt alive) and an indefinite number of other casualties. According to reports, one of the detainees had an exchange of words with one of the National Guard officials. The latter ordered the inmates of the prison wing concerned to be locked up in their overcrowded cells, after which they threw in tear-gas grenades, setting off a large fire. Apparently in previous months many complaints had been lodged by inmates regarding the ill-treatment they suffered at the hands of the National Guard. 71. According to information provided by the Government, in order to deal with the crisis in the prison system, the Government has adopted the following measures: 14 new directors, 32 officials and 300 guards have been appointed; top security prisons have been placed under military control as a means of avoiding mutinies and mass escapes and of carrying out inspections to disarm inmates; agreements have been concluded with several bodies to develop work and educational programmes in the prisons. The Ministry of Justice is also aiming to build new prisons and to renovate existing establishments. 72. The Minister of Justice said that although for 20 years the prison system, like other sectors of social policy, had been in a state of total abandonment, they had become an issue to which his Ministry attached the greatest importance. Responsibility for the dereliction of the sector was to be attributed not only to the Ministry of Justice, but also to the Congress, which had not provided sufficient budgets to meet requirements. The Council of Ministers itself had shown little interest in the problem. Measures were currently being studied to diminish overpopulation, such as releasing more detainees on probation, by simplifying the procedure involved (a programme which was beginning to be applied), in view of the fact that under the current system the police and the judges tended to act according to excessively repressive criteria and were too prone to order detention. In this respect, the Attorney-General pointed out that under the current system individuals were detained for investigation and to gather evidence. With the reform of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the situation would be reversed, that is to say, detention would be ordered as a last resort, only after evidence had been obtained, and the delays for detention orders to be passed by judges would be shortened. 73. The Minister of Justice also referred to the lack of training and low wages among prison guards, which explained the high rates of corruption. In only three months, over 100 officials had been dismissed for corruption, including some directors. The Director of Prisons said that the Ministry was preparing a proposal to institute a real prison police, which would replace existing guards and the National Guard on prison duties and for the transfers of detainees. This police force would be better trained and better paid. Training would be provided by a penitentiary institute which the Ministry of Justice would like to set up as soon as possible. A fund had also been