Foreign prisoners to be transferred home

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Foreign prisoners to be transferred home

 

By Piyanuch Tamnukasetchai 
The Nation

 

File photo

 

The Corrections Department has approved the transfer of 16 foreign inmates to serve their remaining time behind bars in their home countries.

There are 10 inmates from Iran and while one each from Belgium, Switzerland, Netherlands, Japan, Laos and the United Kingdom, department chief Narat Sawettanan said following the prisoner transfer committee's meeting on Friday. 

 

Narat explained that the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced People is required for foreign prisoner transfers and a tri-party agreement must be obtained for each case: the transferring state, the receiving state and the inmate who will be transferred. 

 

A prisoner, proven to be qualified by the Procedure for International Cooperation in the Enforcement of Penal Sentences Act 1984 who obtained a nod from the prisoner transfer committee, must also have their case finalised in court, have served more than one third of the sentence and still have at least a year to be jailed at the home country. 

 

Narat said that the department so far had transferred 1,082 foreign prisoners to their home countries since 1990 under the 1984 act. Thailand has the conventional agreement with 37 countries including France, Spain, Canada, the UK, the US, Germany, Nigeria, Cambodia and Japan. 

 

Only 17 Thais had been transferred to serve remaining jail time in Thailand. 

 

Such prisoner transfer is an opportunity granted to the inmates to be in their home countries, near to families and relatives, and thus be helpful in their behavioural improvement to turn a new leaf before release back to society, he said. 

 

This also helped reduce Thai prison crowding.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30346261

 

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-05-25

[ramrod711]

Good news for the prisoners and their families. I can't imagine how they must feel to depart the land of smiles.

[lungbing]

When the UK tries to deport its foreign criminals the countries of origin refuse to accept them.

[madusa]

22 minutes ago, lungbing said:

When the UK tries to deport its foreign criminals the countries of origin refuse to accept them.

You keep my thrash & I keep your thrash.

[Cadbury]

The  milk of human kindness by the junta spills over. Believe that if you will!

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

Narat said that the department so far had transferred 1,082 foreign prisoners to their home countries since 1990 under the 1984 act. Thailand has the conventional agreement with 37 countries including France, Spain, Canada, the UK, the US, Germany, Nigeria, Cambodia and Japan.  

 

There might be a couple of countries on that list where the home prisons are actually worse than the Thai ones, perhaps Cambodia and Nigeria.  For the others, I'd assume it would be a considerable improvement.

 

[sanemax]

1 hour ago, lungbing said:

When the UK tries to deport its foreign criminals the countries of origin refuse to accept them.

No they do not . The UK are building jails in Nigeria for UK Nigerien prisoners

[sammieuk1]

Hopefully no nonce's  will be exported for a softer sentence.

[Oziex1]

Is this new?  Heard of it happening before. 

[JAG]

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

There might be a couple of countries on that list where the home prisons are actually worse than the Thai ones, perhaps Cambodia and Nigeria.  For the others, I'd assume it would be a considerable improvement.

 

Actually, I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Japanese prison system has a particularly unpleasant regime - especially if you're a foreigner.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 minutes ago, JAG said:

Actually, I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Japanese prison system has a particularly unpleasant regime - especially if you're a foreigner.

 

Worse than here???

[observer90210]

The law is the law and must be respected by all..

 

......but if people have been arrested by entering on Visa Exempt and only because thir "crime" was they overstayed say for 15 days.........then such a manner to proceed is a grotesque circus.

[JAG]

Just now, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Worse than here???

From what I recall, whilst cleaner and less crowded, it sounded harsher, and mind numbingly tedious - having to sit cross legged and still, in silence, for hours on end. That sort of thing

[VillageIdiot]

8 minutes ago, JAG said:

From what I recall, whilst cleaner and less crowded, it sounded harsher, and mind numbingly tedious - having to sit cross legged and still, in silence, for hours on end. That sort of thing

Maybe it was a Zen monastery you were reading about.

[blackcab]

An off topic post and a reply have been removed.

[baansgr]

After years in prison their only accomplishment is to learn the thai language, always feel its ironic they wont be able to use it as they are banned from returning?

[chickenslegs]

2 hours ago, sanemax said:

No they do not . The UK are building jails in Nigeria for UK Nigerien prisoners

I hadn't heard about that and had to look it up on Google. Seems to be a very reasonable and humanitarian (partial) solution to prison overcrowding in the UK - probably cost effective too.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-nigeria-prison/uk-to-build-prison-wing-in-lagos-to-transfer-nigerian-prisoners-idUSKCN1GK1BA

 

[chickenslegs]

4 hours ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

Only 17 Thais had been transferred to serve remaining jail time in Thailand. 

The article states that, under the convention, the prisoner has to agree to the transfer. So it's hardly surprising that a Thai imprisoned in a Western country would not choose to come home to Thailand, where he would suffer overcrowded cells, stale rice and fish head soup.

Edited May 25, 2018 by chickenslegs

[PoorSucker]

Interesting thread that everyone agrees to let them go home, in another thread with pedos it goes the other way, let them root i the big tiger. 

[Andrew65]

9 hours ago, Cadbury said:

The  milk of human kindness by the junta spills over. Believe that if you will!

Some year ago (long before the junta) I read a book "The Last Executioner", about the last guy to use the gun for executions.

 

He stated that Westerners only serve 8 years of a "life" or very long sentence before being transferred back to their home countries.

Thailand has a similar sized population to the UK, it also has about triple the prison population, only poor people. obviously!

Edited May 25, 2018 by Andrew65

[car720]

there are two types of prisoners, from personal experience, those that should never be there and those that should never be free.

[Mattd]

10 hours ago, Oziex1 said:

Is this new?  Heard of it happening before. 

As per the article, it has been going on since 1990, in fact I knew of one guy that was sentenced to 40 years here in the early 90's, ended up going back to the UK prison system in the late 90's and was released sometime in mid 2000's.

[Destiny1990]

The girls in the photo are inmates?

Maybe jail isnt such a bad place after all. 

[sanemax]

Just now, Destiny1990 said:

The girls in the photo are inmates?

Maybe jail isnt such a bad place after all. 

Jails are segregated between the sexes 

[hansnl]

12 hours ago, Cadbury said:

The  milk of human kindness by the junta spills over. Believe that if you will!

Please explain what the "junta" has to do with this?

[thaibeachlovers]

9 hours ago, JAG said:

From what I recall, whilst cleaner and less crowded, it sounded harsher, and mind numbingly tedious - having to sit cross legged and still, in silence, for hours on end. That sort of thing

Why take pity on criminals?

I'd rather criminals don't enjoy their time, and don't use it either to be used as "girlfriends" as apparently happens in US prisons, or to learn how to be better criminals, as apparently happens in western prisons.

[crazykopite]

Why would a Thai want to be transferred from a nice comfortable U.K. prison back to some hell hole prison in Thailand no wonder only 17 have only been transferred over all these years . I know someone in prison on the island of Koh Samui who would would love to know that he was being transferred back to his homeland he has aged by 15 years in his year there and has still 3 years to go he claims he was stitched up .

[1337markus]

Simple cure. Educate tourists or expats  not to bring any alcohol into or out of the country watch them cry no scam to act on. Bit like the stupid standoff on large bottles of wine or boxed wine, supplies have all dried up because of customs and tax. Yet they still keep the same number of pretties in the booze department doing even less work, lol they hide behind displays sitting on the ground either FB or Line, Thailand's only current work.

[Tradewind777]

Cost saving measure more like. Why would they care about reforming a prisoner when isn’t going to be their problem post- release and deported?

[Kerryd]

Before any prisoner transfer happens (in Thailand), there is a committee of some very, very senior personnel who review the request and decide whether or not to approve it. It doesn't matter if the prisoner's home country (and the prisoner) have already approved the transfer.
"The Committee for Consideration of the Transfer of Prisoners” is made up of a group of 10 individuals who review every transfer application and decide whether or not to approve it. (I've listed the positions of the people who sit on that committee below.)
Here is the Department of Corrections link (in English) that deals with International Transfers. Note that the information is dated 2010 so it probably needs to be updated.
http://www.correct.go.th/eng/transfer.html

For example, a Canadian with a lengthy criminal history in Canada (Michael Karas), stole a passport while out on probation and flew to Thailand. He met a young woman, shacked up with her for awhile and then murdered her in a fit of rage one day. He mutilated her face to try and prevent her from being identified (and thus linked to him) and then he cut up her body and dumped it in a swamp. He then jumped on a plane and flew back to Canada (still using the stolen identity). 
Karas was arrested (in Canada) and sent back to prison for violating his probation. While in prison Thailand ID'd him as the suspect in the murder, mutilation and dismemberment of the young woman and requested extradition. Faced with that, he confessed to a couple of bank robberies he'd done that the police hadn't been able to solve. He ended up with a couple more years added to his sentence, which ran out in 2011.

Karas was then extradited to Thailand and found guilty of murder (he later claimed that he thought he was only confessing to manslaughter - ignoring the "mutilation" and "dismemberment" crimes it seems). I imagine he got at least a life sentence (probably 2-3 as I think the mutilation and dismemberment of a corpse are also capital crimes that would result in the death penalty normally).

After just 5 years, Karas applied for a Prisoner Transfer so he could go back to Canada. The Liberal "Public Safety Minister" (hork, spit - go get the mop) immediately approved the request.
Karas and his lawyer actually expected that the transfer would happen immediately and that Karas would be set free as soon as he got back to Canada !!!!!!!!! (It seems they think that 5 years in a Thai prison is too harsh for murdering, mutilating and dismembering a young woman.)

 

I wrote a very, very nasty letter to the Cabinet Minister about this and got a very vanilla response from some flunky in the Corrections department, about how they review all applications and approve/disapprove them on a case by case basis. Total BS. Goodale (the Liberal Minister) hasn't turned down a single application since he took office, regardless of the crime(s) committed or sentence(s) imposed.

This is the same guy who refuses to arrest any suspected ISIS terrorists who've managed to make it back to Canada alive, and who deliberately tries to hoodwink the public by quoting facts and figures he knows are years out of date in order to make the issue seem less problematic. (I'm running out of spit.)

(The response I got back from Corrections Canada  also noted that the host country, Thailand in this case, had to also approve the request before any transfer could happen.)
 

I also wrote a nasty letter to the newspaper that published the article and noted their extremely lame attempt to portray Karas in a sympathetic light by using terms like "half a decade" instead of "5 years" to make it seem like he's been in (Thai) prison for much longer than he actually has been.

 

I did a little research on Thai Corrections to see if I could find out who makes the decisions about such transfers, That is how I found out about the committee that makes the decisions and noted the ranks of the people who sit on it. (Well, who are supposed to be sitting on it. Whether it is them or a designated subordinate I have no idea.)

That committee is made up of the following people (or, I assume, their designates):

The Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Justice (Chairman),

The Judge Advocate General,

The Chief Justice of the Criminal Court,

The Chief Justice of the Central Juvenile Court,

The Attorney-General,

The Director-General of the Royal Thai Police,

The Director-General of the Department of Corrections,

The Director-General of the Treaty and Legal Department,

The Director of the Penology Division of the Department of Corrections, and

The Director of the Treaty Division of the Treaty and Legal Department.

So as you can see, it's not just some clerk in some basement office that stamps "approved" on such requests.

Hopefully that committee also agrees that 5 years is not enough time for the crimes Karas committed. I'm hoping they'll also be aware that Canada has a reputation for releasing prisoners as soon as feasibly possible once they're back in Canada, even convicted terrorists. 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2018 by Kerryd
added clarity