{"id":10768,"date":"2019-12-14T19:32:42","date_gmt":"2019-12-14T17:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=10768"},"modified":"2019-12-14T19:33:26","modified_gmt":"2019-12-14T17:33:26","slug":"not-so-model-the-reality-of-women-incarcerated-in-thailands-model-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2019\/12\/not-so-model-the-reality-of-women-incarcerated-in-thailands-model-prisons\/","title":{"rendered":"Not so model: the reality of women incarcerated in Thailand\u2019s \u2019model\u2019 prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"(Bangkok, Paris) Conditions in most of Thailand\u2019s so-called \u2018model\u2019 prisons are below international standards, a new report published today by FIDH and its member organization Union for Civil Liberty (UCL) reveals.<\/section>\n
The report, titled \u201c\u00a0Flawed models – Implementation of international standards in Thailand\u2019s \u2018model\u2019 prisons for women<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0<\/i>,\u201d is based on visits conducted by a team from FIDH and UCL to nine of the 12 \u2018model\u2019 prisons between May and August 2018. Thailand\u2019s Department of Corrections designates these 12 prisons as \u2018model\u2019, because it claims these facilities have successfully implemented the United Nations (UN) Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (also known as the \u2018Bangkok Rules\u2019).<\/p>\n
\n

\u201cThe designation of \u2018model\u2019 prisons is an attempt to disguise the dreadful reality of women incarcerated in Thailand. Conditions in these prisons are not even close to meeting minimum international standards, so one has to wonder how bad conditions must be in non-\u2018model\u2019 facilities.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Guissou Jahangiri, FIDH Vice-President<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The main issue of concern remains overcrowding \u2013 a chronic phenomenon that plagues prisons across Thailand and negatively impacts many other aspects of prison conditions. When the FIDH\/UCL prison visits began in April 2018, the occupancy levels in all the nine \u2018model\u2019 prisons were high, with levels of up to 652%. Since then, the combined population of the nine prisons has increased by a total of 6%.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Other important areas, where deficiencies and challenges were observed, are: special arrangements for pregnant prisoners and prisoners with babies; the water and sanitation situation, including shortage of sanitary napkins and other toiletries in many prisons; the quality of food; healthcare services, including mental health assessments; prison labor conditions; contact with the outside world; and access to information from the outside world. Lastly, punishment and disciplinary measures used on prisoners are often inconsistent with international minimum standards and, in some cases, may amount to torture or ill-treatment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

The report makes numerous concrete, specific, and achievable recommendations that Thailand\u2019s Department of Corrections should implement in order to improve conditions for women in prisons across the country. The implementation of these recommendations is necessary, but not sufficient to address the root cause of poor prison conditions. This would require the Thai government\u2019s political will to adopt and carry out key policy measures to reduce the country\u2019s prison population. Such measures should include: the decriminalization of certain drug-related offenses; the granting of bail to defendants awaiting trial for certain categories of crimes; and the use of home detention coupled with functioning electronic monitoring devices.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThailand needs to be bold in its approach to reforming the criminal justice system to tackle the horrific overcrowding of prisons. Ultimately, the cabinet, the Parliament, and the courts \u2014not prison administrators\u2014 have the power to create broad-based, high impact solutions.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danthong Breen, UCL Senior Advisor<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flawed models – Implementation of int. standards in Thailand\u2019s \u2018model\u2019 prisons for women. \u201cThe designation of \u2018model\u2019 prisons is an attempt to disguise the dreadful reality of women incarcerated in Thailand. Conditions are not even close to meeting minimum int. standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,90,34,43,91,65,53,88,49],"tags":[130,101,1095,598],"class_list":["post-10768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-editor-selection","category-fidh-news","category-human-rights-online-library","category-new-book","category-others","category-prison-prisoners-and-enforced-disappearance","category-slider","category-womens-rights","tag-prison","tag-report","tag-thailand","tag-women","country-world","Documents-conventions"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10768"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10772,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10768\/revisions\/10772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}