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HELENA, OK -- Authorities are searching for two inmates who escaped from the James Crabtree Correctional Center in Helena in northwestern Oklahoma.

Venezuela's top penitentiary official says a riot broke out between rival gangs in a Caracas prison, killing eight inmates and wounding 16 more.

A second prison officers was injured in a disturbance at Scotland's newest prison, it has emerged.

Emergency services were called to Addiewell Prison in West Lothian after up to 10 prisoners rioted on Monday.

One of the officers was hit by a pool cue in the incident. It is not known how the second officer was hurt.

Neither of the officers is thought to have sustained serious injuries. The incident was brought under control a short time later.

It is understood the disturbance was sparked after an inmate was told his methadone was to be reduced.

POLLOCK, La. - Officials at the federal prison in Pollock say an inmate convicted in Virginia was killed by another inmate, and the maximum-security prison remained locked down Tuesday morning.

Prison spokesman Ron Martinez says another inmate stabbed 25-year-old Carlton Rama Coltrane with a homemade weapon Monday evening.

He was serving 11 years and nine months on convictions of holding up a bank in the Alexandria, Va., conspiring to do so, and using a firearm in a violent crime.

A SEMI-automatic pistol that went missing four days ago from a high-security prison in north Queensland has been found.

The Glock pistol was reported missing from the Lotus Glen Correctional Centre, west of Cairns, on Friday during a routine check of a locked armoury cabinet.

The jail went into lockdown with prisoner cells, staff areas and staff lockers searched.

Corrective Services said the gun was found about 12.30pm (AEST) today in a package in an area of the jail that could not be accessed by prisoners.

The jail has now returned to normal operations.

The potential for tragedy looms large at Arizona prisons, where each night more than 31,000 adult inmates and some 550 juveniles fall asleep in dangerous and deteriorating facilities.

For more than a decade, investigators have identified serious fire-safety issues at the state's prisons and juvenile correctional facilities. Fire-alarm systems are obsolete, broken or non-existent. Sprinklers and smoke-ventilation systems required by building codes have never been installed, even in rapidly deteriorating wooden structures used to house juveniles.