Drug crackdown pushes courts and prisons to breaking point

[geovalin]

Yesenia Amaro

 

A new crackdown on drugs has netted more than one thousand drug users and dealers throughout the country. But can crowded prisons and busy courts keep up?

 

Nguyen Thy Yem and her husband, Bouy Thanh Men, have been using drugs since they married a decade ago. Together, they do meth and heroin in the backstreets of the capital. But Thanh Men insists that he and his wife are users, not dealers. Nonetheless, his wife now faces drug-dealing charges after being arrested on January 10.

She and four others scooped up in the raid in Chbar Ampov district are just a few of the many recently snared in a new nationwide crackdown on drugs. She is also one of the many languishing in pre-trial detention in Prey Sar prison.

 

In the first two weeks of the year, authorities say they have arrested more than a thousand dealers and drug users. While analysts and government officials recognise a rise in drug use, they say the recent explosion in arrests could exacerbate two already thorny problems: prison overcrowding and a backlog of drug cases stuck in the courts.

 

read more http://www.phnompenhpost.com/post-weekend/drug-crackdown-pushes-courts-and-prisons-breaking-point

 

 

-- © Copyright Phenom Pen Post 21/01

[geovalin]

 

Last year, the Cambodian authorities made more than 4,000 drug arrests and seized more than 175 kilograms of narcotics.

 

PHNOM PENH — 

Some 2,000 imprisoned drug addicts have been tested as part of an ongoing clampdown on the narcotics trade in Cambodia’s jails, officials say.

The government announced the campaign in late December and said it will last until the end of June.

 

Identified drug users will be placed in rehabilitation centers.

Noch Savna, prison department spokesman, said the detainees had had urine samples taken and the authorities would release the findings in 20 days time.

“If the results are positive we will hand them to the experts for further inspection and investigation,” he said.

 

A spate of reports about drug use and trafficking in prisons prompted the inspections.

Am Sam Ath, monitoring manager at local rights group Licadho, said he thought the move was a positive step towards reducing addiction in Cambodia’s prisons.

 

“There is drug consumption and importation so far in prison since the drug trafficking proceeds systematically and the authority only cracks down on the small-scale trader, not the large-scale one,” he said.

 

He added that the country “lacked the tools to examine” the drug problem and claimed that “in some cases the authorities are involved with the importation of illegal drugs.”

 

Last year, the authorities made more than 4,000 drug arrests and seized more than 175 kilograms of narcotics.

 

source http://www.voacambodia.com/a/two-thousand-jailed-drug-addicts-detained-in-crackdown-on-prison-narcotics-trade/3685039.html

 

 

-- © Copyright VOA 21/01

[lvr181]

Treat the users (cold turkey) in prison and ship the dealers via an old freighter to the Philippines to be dealt with there. Easy eh?

[Khon Kaen Dave]

This problem with overcrowded prisons etc is also typical of Thailand.The same problem occurs here as well.That is why we never hear of sentences passed on criminals.This is why it dies a death and all goes away.The authorities have nowhere to put the riff raff and rubbish citizens that commit the vilest of crimes here.Many of them are probably released or given 'no return bail' And i havent read of any new prisons being built over the last 10 years,or is that a budget that has also already been plundered to the hilt.

[zorro1]

Pardon petty criminals and put them on a bond. Make room for the drug dealers!

[siam2007]

Crowded prisons because of drug dealers ? "Dirty Harry" Duterte of the Philippines will have a good laugh when reading that....