Thai Prisons Bursting With Drug Offenders

[webfact]

Prisons bursting with drug offenders

By PONGPHON SARNSAMAK

THE NATION ON SUNDAY

The number of prisoners in Thailand's 143 jails is now well over capacity with more than 200,000 inmates around the country. About 60 per cent had been jailed for drug offences, Corrections Department chief Chartchai Suthiklom said.

The large number of prisoners had affected the department's budget, staff and capacity to manage both jails and inmates, he said.

Records show the number of prisoners rose drastically from 152,625 in 2006 to 206,988 last year.

And this year, the total number surged to 206,000 over the first six months. Nearly two thirds were drug offenders.

The average number of prisoners per month has risen from 16,000 in last year to 17,600 in this year.

Chartchai said Thailand had 143 jails across the country and about 10,000 staff working for the department. The capacity of all jails should be only 140,000 inmates a year.

Meanwhile, the present ratio of staff and prisoners was 1:20. But an appropriate figure would be 1:5.

Problems stemmed from the government's plan to limit funds for state agencies. But the department had saved funds by maximising the use of its space, which left it enough budget for its work.

Chartchai said he had asked for Bt8 million next year to help the department to develop jails and boost its human resources capacity.

However, as 60 per cent of prisoners were drug addicts, he was concerned about the rise in such inmates since the end of the "war on drugs" - a highly controversial crackdown in 2003 when several thousand dealers were killed.

Chartchai said even though most major drug dealers were behind bars the demand for narcotic drugs, especially ya ba (methamphetamine), remained.

Most detained drug dealers used networks inside and outside jail to contact suppliers, mostly in northern provinces and along the Burma borders to sell drugs to customers in Bangkok and nearby provinces, which had the biggest market for ya ba dealers.

"Even though we were able to arrest major drug dealers and detain them in jail, many people outside the jail are ready to be new major drug dealers," the director-general said.

People want to be a new-face ya ba dealer because they can make a lot of profit from selling ya ba. The cost of one pill is Bt3 a tablet but the price they are sold for has increased to Bt200 to Bt400 per tablet.

"All new-face drug dealers are happy to take risks because the demand still exists, even though they know that they could face the death sentence."

Prison overcrowding

Thai prisons' maximum capacity: 140,000 inmates

Current number of inmates: over 200,000

Ratio of correction staff to prisoners is 1: 20

New arrivals to prisons (per month on average): 17,600 inmates

-- The Nation 2010-08-01

[zzaa09]

Drugs. Illicit or legal. Big business - very big business.....in one form or another.

[Pib]

60% of the prisoners are in for drug offences...I definitely believe it. Most of the time when I hear a family/friends talk about someone who just went to prision/jail the story continues that they usually got arrested for selling and/or transporting drugs.

[jayjay0]

Well it just goes to show that some of the cops are doing there job. Not a popular belief in TV Farong Land.:jap:

[whybother]

60% of the prisoners are in for drug offences...I definitely believe it. Most of the time when I hear a family/friends talk about someone who just went to prision/jail the story continues that they usually got arrested for selling and/or transporting drugs.

60% are drug addicts ... not necessarily in for drug offences, although most are likely drug related (ie theft to support a drug habit.)

[geriatrickid]

Well it just goes to show that some of the cops are doing there job. Not a popular belief in TV Farong Land.:jap:

Or maybe these people couldn't buy their way out of the charges?

[moe666]

My girl friends son got caught with yaba and all she will say it cost her big to keep him out of jail.

[zzaa09]

Well it just goes to show that some of the cops are doing there job. Not a popular belief in TV Farong Land.:jap:

Win-win for them, as they jail the offenders that purchase their stream operations.....

[jcartermad]

I have no idea what Ya Ba is but if a pill is THB 3 cost and sells at THB 200 it is no wonder people take risks and deal. Crack on on the venders and the importers have no market. Better still legalise Ya Ba...government buys for THB 3 and sells for say THB 20 a huge income stream. Only joking but many European Governments are slowly swinging around to the view that to stop Drug Related Crime is to legalise it. Sell it openly like booze and fags. No house will get trashed and if someone wants to Ya Ba up or Booze up...well who am i to comment. Prior to the late 60's the Far East has many legal opium dens. Just walk in...smoke your peipe and job down. No one killed anyone to get a pipe. No muggins, shootings or pretty theft. Pay your money, lie down, smoke pipe and drift off. Watch the film "The quite American". He smoked, (Micheal Caine's newpaper reporter) but remained sain and did his job. Legalising drugs ensures purity and no OD's. Many soldiers after the 1st World War were given legal heroin for years. Correct dosage, pure and they all had jobs, brought up families and lived normal decent lives. Drugs go bad with crime not with supervised administration. Just a view. Not looking for an agruement...just a view.Personally i'm a 3 bottle Leo fall over man. Never taken drugs or smoked but i hate drug related crimes. It affects us all.

[Beetlejuice]

Perhaps if they increased the number of mandatory death sentences for drugs offences, this would cull the numbers of prisoners and free up more space in the cells for those sentenced to jail for more minor crimes.

[noel2499rk]

Prohibition does not work, Prohibition of alcohol did not work in America in the 20's and prohibition of drugs has been failing for the last 30 years but no one in government can bring themselves to admit it. There's a great article in the Guardian on this today.

Why do we so wilfully cover up the failure of the war on drugs?

Thousands of people are dying in Mexico, Jamaica, Colombia every year yet the supply is never tempered or interrupted in the slightest, why did 25,000 Mexicans have to die since December 2006 yet supply is not affected.

http://www.thenation.com/article/37916/who-behind-25000-deaths-mexico?page=full

Drugs are a health problem, not a law and order problem, the harder drugs should be available through hospitals and doctors on prescription, while softer ones like cannabis should be sold alongside cigarettes. The sooner the world wakes up to this the sooner we can stop locking up thousands of people and eliminate all drug related crime.

[Shurup]

I have no idea what Ya Ba is but if a pill is THB 3 cost and sells at THB 200 it is no wonder people take risks and deal. Crack on on the venders and the importers have no market. Better still legalise Ya Ba...government buys for THB 3 and sells for say THB 20 a huge income stream. Only joking but many European Governments are slowly swinging around to the view that to stop Drug Related Crime is to legalise it. Sell it openly like booze and fags. No house will get trashed and if someone wants to Ya Ba up or Booze up...well who am i to comment. Prior to the late 60's the Far East has many legal opium dens. Just walk in...smoke your peipe and job down. No one killed anyone to get a pipe. No muggins, shootings or pretty theft. Pay your money, lie down, smoke pipe and drift off. Watch the film "The quite American". He smoked, (Micheal Caine's newpaper reporter) but remained sain and did his job. Legalising drugs ensures purity and no OD's. Many soldiers after the 1st World War were given legal heroin for years. Correct dosage, pure and they all had jobs, brought up families and lived normal decent lives. Drugs go bad with crime not with supervised administration. Just a view. Not looking for an agruement...just a view.Personally i'm a 3 bottle Leo fall over man. Never taken drugs or smoked but i hate drug related crimes. It affects us all.

If you don't know what is methamphetamine (in Western World known as crystal meth) - google it. You have to be insane to legalize that stuff. Crystal Meth comparing to Heroin is like rocket launcher compared to a pellet gun. You will get addicted to this stuff after just a few doses and you will be a goner pretty soon afterward. This stuff will get through your skin into your blood stream if you just handle the pills. I see no problems with legalizing some drugs but definitely not all of them.

[nisakiman]

Perhaps if they increased the number of mandatory death sentences for drugs offences, this would cull the numbers of prisoners and free up more space in the cells for those sentenced to jail for more minor crimes.

How very progressive.

What would you call more minor? Armed muggings?

Maybe while they're at it they should introduce the death sentence for alcohol offences - you know, DUI, glassings etc.

They could even extend it to the whole prison population. That would free up loads of room and save loads of money. Problem solved...

Yes, yes! Hang 'em high!

[sunanta]

I have no idea what Ya Ba is but if a pill is THB 3 cost and sells at THB 200 it is no wonder people take risks and deal. Crack on on the venders and the importers have no market. Better still legalise Ya Ba...government buys for THB 3 and sells for say THB 20 a huge income stream. Only joking but many European Governments are slowly swinging around to the view that to stop Drug Related Crime is to legalise it. Sell it openly like booze and fags. No house will get trashed and if someone wants to Ya Ba up or Booze up...well who am i to comment. Prior to the late 60's the Far East has many legal opium dens. Just walk in...smoke your peipe and job down. No one killed anyone to get a pipe. No muggins, shootings or pretty theft. Pay your money, lie down, smoke pipe and drift off. Watch the film "The quite American". He smoked, (Micheal Caine's newpaper reporter) but remained sain and did his job. Legalising drugs ensures purity and no OD's. Many soldiers after the 1st World War were given legal heroin for years. Correct dosage, pure and they all had jobs, brought up families and lived normal decent lives. Drugs go bad with crime not with supervised administration. Just a view. Not looking for an agruement...just a view.Personally i'm a 3 bottle Leo fall over man. Never taken drugs or smoked but i hate drug related crimes. It affects us all.

in todays world u r what is known as a 3 beer queer

[gburns57au]

Unfortunately this is not confined to Thai Prisons....Aussie prisons are bursting at the seams as well.

The 60% drug offenders is probably not far off the mark either.

Drug offences far outweigh other offences and it would not surprise me to find that most countries are experiencing the same.

Just one look at a before drugs and after drugs photo should be enough to answer the legalization argument. Speed kills in more than one sense.

[elkangorito]

Solve the problem & legalise drugs.

[zzaa09]

Solve the problem & legalise drugs.

Wishful thinking, indeed. It's been far too late for some time now. This long ideals and history of such illegal drugs and the subsequent war on drugs has long been implanted in the minds, hearts, and souls of populations - and the fabricated dark overwhelming negativity that such activities that associate. Social engineering at it's premium. If only more understood the rhymes and reasons {and history} of how this rather modern phenomena of such "bad drugs" was developed for them.....by the corporate-government national security system. And then, we are asked to turn a blind eye towards the ever-present monster that is the medical-pharmaceutical industrial mafia - which I might add - kills tens of thousands of people annually through misuse, malpractice, and the ever-popular conditioning of drugged-out societies. The real criminals will never come to the surface, as we've been slightly hypnotized as to the "good drugs" and their {perceived} well-intended properties and promoted goodness. The criminal activity and behaviour associated with 'illegal' drugs is purely a farce. Real as it might be, there is certainly no reason for gangland executions and well-established cartels behind the distribution of these substances. Why? Because they've invented such a world for you. Ever heard of whiskey or beer cartel? Alcohol, which kills and disables 100 fold more individuals than any such illegal drugs. Criminal activity? Can we recognize it? How are druggies, their associations, a real harm to a respective culture? Whereas, the real criminals of government and industry {white-collar} generally are never prosecuted nor brought to any satisfying justice regarding the crimes they commit on societies at large - whom really do harm to societal infrastructures and whatnot. Critical thinking and historical knowledge is principle in combating the real wrongs that are perpetuated among our societies.

[elkangorito]

^Thanks for that

[nisakiman]

Solve the problem & legalise drugs.

Wishful thinking, indeed. It's been far too late for some time now. This long ideals and history of such illegal drugs and the subsequent war on drugs has long been implanted in the minds, hearts, and souls of populations - and the fabricated dark overwhelming negativity that such activities that associate. Social engineering at it's premium. If only more understood the rhymes and reasons {and history} of how this rather modern phenomena of such "bad drugs" was developed for them.....by the corporate-government national security system. And then, we are asked to turn a blind eye towards the ever-present monster that is the medical-pharmaceutical industrial mafia - which I might add - kills tens of thousands of people annually through misuse, malpractice, and the ever-popular conditioning of drugged-out societies. The real criminals will never come to the surface, as we've been slightly hypnotized as to the "good drugs" and their {perceived} well-intended properties and promoted goodness. The criminal activity and behaviour associated with 'illegal' drugs is purely a farce. Real as it might be, there is certainly no reason for gangland executions and well-established cartels behind the distribution of these substances. Why? Because they've invented such a world for you. Ever heard of whiskey or beer cartel? Alcohol, which kills and disables 100 fold more individuals than any such illegal drugs. Criminal activity? Can we recognize it? How are druggies, their associations, a real harm to a respective culture? Whereas, the real criminals of government and industry {white-collar} generally are never prosecuted nor brought to any satisfying justice regarding the crimes they commit on societies at large - whom really do harm to societal infrastructures and whatnot. Critical thinking and historical knowledge is principle in combating the real wrongs that are perpetuated among our societies.

A surprising post.

I don't agree unequivocally, but the broad thrust of your post is pretty much on the nail.

You won't convince many here (or anywhere, to be honest) however, as most have been in thrall to the received orthodoxy all their lives, and have no appetite for objective thought.

[jayjay0]

Well it just goes to show that some of the cops are doing there job. Not a popular belief in TV Farong Land.:jap:

Or maybe these people couldn't buy their way out of the charges?

I read all your posts for the most part agree with them.

What I can't figure out is your intolerance to the idea that there are honest cops out there. If you believe that you have kept it a secret.

All most like you had copaphobia. By the way you are definitely not alone in this opinion. I just picked you because for the most part you have a lot of good points.

[chantorn]

Prisons bursting with drug offenders.

This is the result of Thaksin policies against drug. Thaksin should never have done that.

[Ulysses G.]

If only more understood the rhymes and reasons {and history} of how this rather modern phenomena of such "bad drugs" was developed for them.....by the corporate-government national security system.

I am guessing that you do not have a lot of experience with Meth Amphetamine -Ya Baaa. Sometimes there are good reasons for a war on drugs.

[SiamRose]

The reasons for the "war on drugs" may be well intentioned, but the fact is we can never win such a "war", time for some new thinking.

[noel2499rk]

If only more understood the rhymes and reasons {and history} of how this rather modern phenomena of such "bad drugs" was developed for them.....by the corporate-government national security system.

I am guessing that you do not have a lot of experience with Meth Amphetamine -Ya Baaa. Sometimes there are good reasons for a war on drugs.

The point is that making yabaa illegal and pumping huge resources into fighting a war against those who use it, does nothing to prevent people getting hold of it and taking it. The British police have huge resources and the best technology at their disposal yet can only stop around 1 % of the Heroin coming into the country, what chance do the Thai police have of stopping people taking a drug that you can make at home. Far better to divert the resources currently used to fight drugs into education about drugs for kids and rehab centers for users. Bring yabaa completely under government control, register all users and treat the problem as a health issue in hospitals not prisons. World wide we have had 40 years of a sustained war on drugs, with huge resources put into law enforcement, yet both use and production of drugs has increased unchecked.

[zzaa09]

Prisons bursting with drug offenders.

This is the result of Thaksin policies against drug. Thaksin should never have done that.

Perhaps, this might be so. As T-Squared did escalate an already embedded hysteria towards a war on drugs. You'll find that similar intense infrastructures were well in place during the 1960's and 1970's as well. Thai reflective history, as it applies to an enemy-of-the-month is a metaphor for whatever they decide whom the current boogieman might be. If it's not 'illegal' drugs, it would be political opposition or imagined insurgents......etc, etc. If the authority figures find themselves so pure of heart, than why not view a more dangerous culprit? Alcohol. Much more destructive, universally, on society than not.

[zzaa09]

If only more understood the rhymes and reasons {and history} of how this rather modern phenomena of such "bad drugs" was developed for them.....by the corporate-government national security system.

I am guessing that you do not have a lot of experience with Meth Amphetamine -Ya Baaa. Sometimes there are good reasons for a war on drugs.

The point is that making yabaa illegal and pumping huge resources into fighting a war against those who use it, does nothing to prevent people getting hold of it and taking it. The British police have huge resources and the best technology at their disposal yet can only stop around 1 % of the Heroin coming into the country, what chance do the Thai police have of stopping people taking a drug that you can make at home. Far better to divert the resources currently used to fight drugs into education about drugs for kids and rehab centers for users. Bring yabaa completely under government control, register all users and treat the problem as a health issue in hospitals not prisons. World wide we have had 40 years of a sustained war on drugs, with huge resources put into law enforcement, yet both use and production of drugs has increased unchecked.

One might examine the ever-increasing rhymes and reasons for drug usage worldwide over a few decades. Think back when.....was such use common place or even considered foul towards society? Why has the drug usage increased over the last few decades?

[robblok]

Im from Holland and i would say legalise as much drugs as you can. There is no way we can win against drugs, so better teach people how to use safely and keep functioning when taking drugs.

Actually there are loads of people just using it occasionally and they are not addicts.

Like an other poster already said alcohol is real damaging too but its allowed. If you classify its effects its a hard drug too.

Im pretty sure that from legalization problems arise.. but will be more problems then there are now ?

Neither legalization nor criminalization is perfect just have to find the least damaging way.

For the record i'm sure there are bad stories about addicts but is it really sure that there will be so many more new addicts if its legal. Its not like Holland has more addicts then other countries and there they are allowed to use weed.

[surangw]

execute the dealers and see how fast it stops

[yellow1red1]

My girl friends son got caught with yaba and all she will say it cost her big to keep him out of jail.

oh for good old days when she needed money for sick water buffalo

Solve the problem & legalise drugs.

with that 'logic' legalise alchohol causes no problems in world!? ... DUH

[zzaa09]

execute the dealers and see how fast it stops

Dealers. You do realize that this {proposed extermination} would include the authoritarian/establishment infrastructures as well, yes?