Police Chief Proposes Prison On Island For Drug Dealers: Thailand

[cowslip]

In 1976 I had the dubious pleasure of being in Taiwan as a student. While checking in at the hostel I lived at for a few days, I witnessed a public execution by firing squad of 3 young men on live TV, ages 17 to 19. They had held up a 'factory' with knives and took the owners wristwatches. Apprehended in a matter of minutes of the execution of the crime, they were swiftly tried and executed three days after. Any crime involving 2 or more perpetrators was considered 'conspiracy against the government' and punishable by death.

I had a group of 5 businessmen for a private English class. We met once a week at a restaurant in the evening for English conversation. After our meal one evening as we walked down a busy street, there was a woman hunched over in a squat position, back bent so her stomach was against her knees and she had to move like a crab. When I stopped to put a few almost worthless coins in her cup, one of my students angrily stopped me, telling me that she was a criminal. At the time, Taiwan sent their criminals to an island where they were housed in 'tiger cages' and their knees calcified and given a few years, they would never walk again.

Say what you will about cruel and unusual punishment - a strong visual deterrent led to a very low crime rate. Not that I recommend such punishment for drug offenders, but I would wager that if such a fate were the outcome for persons convicted, you would most likely not see much of a drug problem.

what absolute rubbish. e g china has very harsh laws and has massive drug use, most of the heroin from burma goes to china

I don't know what you mean to refer to about 'absolute rubbish'. In 1976, Taiwan was not under the control of the PRC. Chiang Kai-shek had just recently died and the PRC regularly shelled just offshore of the island, relations with the PRC had not yet been normalized by the US and US policy at the time continued to support a separate independent Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. What I wrote was what I observed with my own eyes, and the lady I observed was probably sentenced for theft. If you read carefully, I never mentioned drugs.

Whether China has a huge drug problem is moot and not germane to either the news article or my comment as Taiwan is still a sovereign state not under the control of the PRC of mainland China and in fact ROC continue to maintain that the government there is the legitimate government for the mainland.

My point was that people who emerge from tiger cages on island prisons who spend the rest of their days walking like crabs offer visual reinforcement of why it is best not to engage in criminal behavior. Same can be said for swift executions broadcast on live TV.

I would certainly be interested in a cite for your source about the massive drug use in China and heroin from Burma going there. If you'd like to make your comment germane to my comment, perhaps you'd like to tell all of us about any massive drug use on the island of Taiwan, Republic of China.

"My point was that people who emerge from tiger cages on island prisons who spend the rest of their days walking like crabs offer visual reinforcement of why it is best not to engage in criminal behavior. Same can be said for swift executions broadcast on live TV."

and a particularly facile one too.

[yumidesign]

edco you said

"Not that I recommend such punishment for drug offenders, but I would wager that if such a fate were the outcome for persons convicted, you would most likely not see much of a drug problem."

google drug use in china