Bang Kwang Prison Goes Hi-tech

[george]

Bang Kwang prison goes Hi-tech

BANGKOK: -- The government plans to make the Bang Kwang Central Prison the most hi-tech detention centre in Thailand.

Renovations to the prison’s security system -- the first in seventy-three years – have already begun, according to the Director-General of the Department of Corrections, Nathee Chitsawang.

When completed, each building will be equipped with hi-tech surveillance equipment, a closed circuit television system and mobile phone signal scrambling devices.

Each prisoner will also be issued with smart ID cards to make tracking the prisoners during their daily activities.

A telephone system will be installed later to allow prisoners to communicate with their visitors.

Currently prisoners have to shout to their relatives through the prison bars.

A new hi-tech execution area will also be built.

Thailand’s executions changed from shooting to lethal injection last year, and the new execution cell is designed to accommodate the new method.

Bang Kwang is known in Thailand as the country’s toughest prison with the highest level of security.

It is the only prison in the country where executions take place.

There are currently 6,000 prisoners in the prison. Seven hundred of them have been sentenced to be executed for committing serious crimes, mostly drugs-related and murder.

--TNA 2004-08-20