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Thailand Penal System
The penal system was administered by the Department of
Corrections within the Ministry of Interior. The government's
stated policy in operating the system was to use its facilities
to reduce crime by correcting and rehabilitating offenders rather
than only punishing them. Rehabilitation of convicted offenders
was a relatively recent penal concept in Thailand, however, and
proper facilities, programs, and specially trained penal staff
were limited.
In the late 1980s, the system consisted of forty-six regular
penal institutions, including seven central prisons, five
regional prisons, twenty-three prison camps, seven correctional
institutions, three reformatories, and one detention home. In
addition, all metropolitan, provincial, and district police
stations had jails of varying adequacy for offenders whose
sentences did not exceed one year.
The seven central and five regional prisons housed the
majority of prisoners with long-term sentences. Khlong Prem
Central Prison in Bangkok, with a capacity of 6,000 inmates, was
one of the oldest and largest. A maximum security institution for
habitual criminals was operated at Nakhon Pathom. Twenty-three
prison camps were located on Ko Tarutao, an island in the Strait
of Malacca. The camps accommodated an average of fifty
good-conduct prisoners, who worked principally in agriculture,
preparing themselves for employment after their release.
Two correctional institutions, one at Ayutthaya and one in
Bangkok, held primarily offenders eighteen to twenty-five years
old serving terms of up to five years. The Women's Correctional
Institution was also located in Bangkok, and the specialized
Medical Correctional Institution for drug addicts and other
prisoners who required medical attention was located in Pathum
Thani Province north of the capital. Minimum security
correctional centers were located at Rayong and Phitsanulok.
Of the three reformatories, the Ban Lat Yao facility, just
north of Bangkok, with a capacity of about 2,000, received the
majority of the more recalcitrant juvenile delinquents. Limited
rehabilitation activities were undertaken there; those who failed
to respond were sent to a second reformatory near Rayong, which
was operated on the prison farm principle. A third reformatory at
Prachuap Khiri Khan, about 200 kilometers southwest of Bangkok,
was used only to accommodate the overflow from the other two
institutions.
Additional special facilities for juvenile offenders, called
observation and protection centers, were administered by the
Central Juvenile Court and the Central Observation and Protection
Center of the Ministry of Justice. Attached to each juvenile
court, the centers assisted in caring for and supervising
delinquent children charged with criminal offenses, both before
and after trial. Probation officers, social workers, and teachers
assigned to the centers aided the court by collecting information
on the background and home environment of offenders, by taking
them into custody pending trial, by accompanying the defendants
into court, and by reporting to the court on their mental and
physical conditions.
Health conditions in all types of penal institutions improved
during the 1970s and 1980s, but more hospital facilities were
needed. Prison education facilities conducted literacy classes
for 20,000 prisoners each year. Vocational training workshops
also were established in some prisons. Products from prison labor
were sold, and 35 percent of the net profit was returned to the
prisoners. Some of this income could be spent during
incarceration, but most of it went into a savings fund to assist
the prisoner in making a new start after release.
Data as of September 1987
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