LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Venezuelan criminals have begun using food to recruit children into gangs.

The critical food shortages pummeling Venezuela have started to change the nature of crime in the country, at times increasing what some experts have started to call “hunger crimes” and at other times turning food into a valuable item to be taken by force.

“This is a new phenomenon because it’s something that we never had in this country, crimes committed because of hunger,” said Roberto Briceño León, director of the Caracas-based Venezuelan Observatory for Violence (VOV).

“This type of crime has been increasing, and now we see how criminal groups are starting to steal food, how individuals who before did not steal have now started to steal food,” Briceño added in a telephone interview.

Criminal gangs are also using food to recruit children and teenagers in Venezuela, a country with one of the world’s highest crime rates.

And kudus to El Nuevo Herald’s Antonio Maria Delgado for including this line: “Even though it has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, Venezuela is suffering one of the most severe economic crises of its modern history as a result of the policies imposed by the socialist regimes of Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro.”