Drug trafficking from prisons difficult to combat
Supervision of 100 prisoners, 12-hour days and moderate pay. The prison guard's job is tough.
The temptation is therefore great when a prisoner offers money to smuggle in a mobile phone or drugs.
Od Sae Pua, a jailer at Nakhon Si Thammarat Prison, refused and reported the bribery attempt to his superior. In the early morning of August 18, he was shot dead on his way home. Yes, the gentlemen drug traffickers are not to be mocked, even if they are under lock and key. The Corrections Department now fears that with the help of corrupt jailers they will be able to continue their deadly trade with impunity from prison.
Prisons are overcrowded and understaffed
The main problems are the overcrowding of the prisons and a dire shortage of guards. Nakhon Si Thammarat Prison was designed for 3.300 inmates and now houses 4.900. Each jailer has to keep an eye on 100 prisoners. In other prisons, 15 prisoners are placed in a small cell, but the prison does not count small cells. Large ones with 150 prisoners or more, so that they come into close contact with each other and have easy access to the guards.
Thailand has 143 prisons, nine of which, including Nakhon Si Thammarat, are a maximum security facility (EBI). Nationally, 159.000 prisoners are incarcerated for drug offenses, or 65 percent of the total prison population of approximately 246.000. Drug dealers and producers usually receive life sentences or the death penalty. They rarely qualify for a reduced sentence or pardon. And their numbers keep growing.
The inmates are smart
The Corrections Department tries to prevent contact between prisoners and accomplices outside the prison. For example, prisons are getting jamming equipment that makes mobile phone communication impossible, but so far it has only been installed in Khao Bin prison in Ratchaburi. There will also be X-ray machines and surveillance cameras in the EBIs.
Vehicles and goods going in and out of prison and mail are better controlled. But the inmates are savvy. For example, drugs were smuggled that were attached to the underside of cars with a magnet. That was discovered when a large amount of magnets were found in cells. And once drugs were hidden in packages of Lactasoy (soy milk), which were delivered to the prison. Other measures include dividing prisons into smaller zones and regularly transferring staff and prisoners.
Society must take its responsibility
But according to Padet Ringrawd, director of the Office of Drug Suppression and Prevention, these are all workarounds until the biggest problem, prison overcrowding, is solved. It would already help a lot to omit imprisonment for lesser offenses. Japan, for example, has taken community-assisted measures to delay imprisonment and rehabilitate drug addicts. "The key is for society to lend a helping hand and take responsibility."
(Source: Bangkok Post, Spectrum, September 9, 2012)