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Analysis

Thailand: managing uncertainty

The Thai reaction to the sanitary crisis in prison and its consequences

From the beginning of the sanitary crisis, Thai authorities from different sectors have been collaborating in order to prevent the spread of the virus: the prison administration has worked closely with the Public Health Ministry, the Disease Control Department, the provincial Public Health offices and major hospitals. As reported by the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ), the prison administration and the Public Health Ministry have developed together a comprehensive healthcare system and provided training for prison-based health volunteers. The Disease Control Department has collaborated with the prison administration’s Medical Service Division. Together, they have produced guidelines on how to examine and control COVID-19 in case of infection. “The guidelines aim to ensure preparedness and a timely response”, says the TIJ.

Prison Insider and the Centre for Studies on Justice and Society (Chile) propose an analysis of the first year of the pandemic in prisons in eleven countries. Thailand is one of them.

Prisons are severely overcrowded: prisoners have less than one square meter on average to sleep.

Prison system

The prison administration is under the authority of the Ministry of Justice. Thai prison population is the 6th in the world in terms of number of prisoners, of which 17.7% are people awaiting their trial. The vast majority of the prison population is incarcerated for drugs-related offences. It concerns more than 80% of all convicted prisoners. Prisons are severely overcrowded: prisoners have less than one square meter on average to sleep. Physical distancing is difficult to maintain in such congested spaces. Prisoners usually spend more than 14 hours per day in their sleeping area. According to the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ), overcrowding is also the cause of other management problems, including the lack of basic healthcare in prison facilities: insufficient medicine, medical services, equipment, isolation rooms, medical staff. For instance, the ratio of nurses to prisoners is 1 : 1,250. The majority of the facilities do not have a doctor on duty.1

  1. TIJ, Report on the Covid-19 Situation in Prison and Policy Recommendations for Thailand, March 2020, pp. 8- 9. ↩

347,042

people were incarcered in Thailaid in March 2020.

The measures introduced were based on the principle of “No exit for Insiders, no entry for Outsiders”.

Sanitary conditions and access to healthcare

The prison administration, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, started by implementing prevention protocols to avoid the spread of the virus. The measures introduced were based on the principle of “No exit for Insiders, no entry for Outsiders”. Newly arrived prisoners and those presenting COVID-19 symptoms were placed in quarantine cells for 14 days.. Great emphasis was placed on screenings. Prison staff had their body temperature checked before entering prisons. Prison authorities reported that hand sanitiser was made available to prisoners and staff members and that PPE was provided for prison staff.1
The prison administration set up campaigns to encourage prisoners from each facility to regularly clean the premises. Prisoners were advised to wear masks and wash their hands. The prison administration set up mechanisms to sanitise parcels and letters, such as “mail incubators” and “UV parcel boxes”.

  1. TIJ, Report on the Covid-19 Situation in Prison and Policy Recommendations for Thailand ↩

Identified cases

The prison administration recorded COVID-19 cases in Ratchaburi Central Prison (one prisoner), Nakhon Nayok prison (the prison director), Chumphon Provincial prison (two staff members). The prison administration has not reported any new case since 15 May 2020.

Sentence adjustments

In April 2020, the prison administration suspended the sentence of more than 8,000 prisoners in order to reduce overcrowding. Individuals detained for “minor offences” and those exhibiting “good behaviour” were eligible. Temporary release procedures were conducted by the Court via videocall.
Many trials were postponed if the delay was not causing any damage to neither of the disputing parties. About 160,000 cases were affected. As of 1st June 2020, the Court had fully resumed its activities.

8,000

sentences were suspended in April 2020.

Their capacity to work and to generate income was therefore central to improve their conditions of detention.

Activities and work

Activities that required prisoners to leave the prison premises or required the entering of external actors were postponed or cancelled. These decisions particularly impacted those who used to work outside the facilities, with a severe negative impact on their income. Many prisoners were isolated from their families and do not receive food or money from their relatives. Their capacity to work and to generate income was therefore central to improve their conditions of detention.
Some external actors, such as religious associations, provided videos to compensate for the lack of in-person activities.

Communication with the outside world

Family visits and visits from social workers or chaplains were all suspended from 18 March to 1st June 2020. During this period, families were still allowed to send money and food to their incarcerated loved ones, but on the condition of respecting the sanitary measures. The national lockdown (travel restrictions) in Thailand however prevented many family members from bringing goods to the facilities.

Relatives were allowed to keep sending letters (disinfected upon arrival) and communicate by e-mail: messages could be sent to the prison’s e-mail address and were printed for prisoners to read.

To compensate for the lack of in-person visits, an e-visiting programme was made available. Each call could last up to 10 minutes, and the number of participants could not exceed 10. Prisoners, apart from those subject to disciplinary measures, could use this service once a month.
The police, probation staff, and lawyers were allowed to meet prisoners for legal consultations only in the case of urgent matters that affect their trial. No inspection visits from external organisations were allowed between March and May 2020.
On 1st June 2020, family visits resumed. The prison administration provided strict measures and guidelines for visitation. To this day, family visits are still subjected to each facility’s rules.
The prison administration used their Facebook page and website to share instructions on how to use the application “Line” for the videocalls and inform prisoners’ relatives on the measures implemented.

2.5

Number of months prisoners spent without visits in 2020.

Acts of protest

One riot was reported since the beginning of the pandemic. It took place in March 2020 at Buriram prison, after rumours of contamination spread. Several prisoners escaped, seven of which were arrested. Following the riot, the prison authorities opened an investigation. All 2,106 prisoners from Buriram were transferred to 18 other facilities in the north-east of the country.

“It shouldn’t take a riot for Thai authorities to consider reducing populations in prisons, jails, and detention facilities.”

Calls and recommendations

In March 2020, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called upon the authorities to adopt “concrete measures” to guarantee access to health care and medical protection for prisoners. HRW’s Asia region director added that “it shouldn’t take a riot for Thai authorities to consider reducing populations in prisons, jails, and detention facilities”. They recommended the conditional release of ill prisoners and of people imprisoned for so-called minor offences.
Also in March, the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ) recommended that imprisonment should be used as a last resort for criminal punishment. They asked the authorities should consider releasing prisoners in the light of the overcrowding situation in Thai prisons. The NGO called the authorities to consider using alternatives to short-term sentences for “non-serious offenders”, especially for elderly people or those with underlying health conditions. For the releases, priority was to be given to prisoners awaiting trial, prisoners with a remaining prison sentence of less than a year, elderly prisoners, prisoners convicted of “non-violent or petty offenses”. Finally, the TIJ suggested the authorities to monitor efficiently prisoners who were granted conditional releases, with clear guidelines on pre-release health checks and information on how to protect themselves against the virus.1

  1. TIJ, Report on the Covid-19 Situation in Prison and Policy Recommendations for Thailand, March 2020 pp. 11-13. ↩

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