[reervieltnope]

Thanks for these two stories Khun Don. Nice to hear about some progressive steps taken in this area.
The 'kaho Daeng' story sheds a little more light on the practice of depositing some money with the jail authorities so a prisoner can buy outside food.

[Buyingtime]

Welcome change in our prisons

Prisons are not supposed to have all the comforts of home but they are intended to be an improvement on medieval dungeons and torture chambers. While jails in some Western countries might have more in common with the former, our prisons have long had characteristics of the latter. That has largely been due to rampant overcrowding, appalling food and a primitive, brutal and unhealthy environment which motivated escape attempts and riots. Times, though, are changing and the Corrections Department deserves credit for some truly thought-provoking innovations. No longer does the department want our jails to be mere places of detention which double as ''crime colleges'', encouraging criminals to commit further, often more serious crimes after their release. Instead, the focus is now on rehabilitation and deterring repeat offenders through education and experimental therapy.To this end, a number of stress-relieving experiments in penal reform have been launched. The past month alone has seen the removal of excessive fencing around remand homes to avoid the ''institutional'' stigma and a more appealing diet introduced with white rice replacing unmilled brown. It also saw a courageous young woman earn her freedom by beating her Japanese opponent to win an internationally-supervised world boxing title fight in the Klong Prem prison grounds.


Other well-behaved prisoners serving short sentences have been trained to work as maids, carers of the elderly, babysitters, therapeutic masseuses and general housekeepers. They are then assisted with weekday placement, with incarceration limited to weekends. This helps to keep families intact. Such work release programmes are welcome because the inmates who suffer the most are those who have committed minor offences and for whom a more suitable punishment would have been a non-custodial one.


Guards are being taught to be more efficient and humane and prisoners encouraged to value themselves through football matches, wedding ceremonies, meditation, traditional massage services, prison choirs and, on occasion, granted conjugal rights. In some prisons, inmates can now undertake studies via satellite or webcasts, make handicrafts for sale or learn farming techniques at military camps. Anger management training is available for those who have abused family members.


One somewhat bizarre and uniquely Thai project has proven especially popular. When it was launched just under a year ago, 48 inmates from 20 prisons in the Northeast took part in a regional laughing competition. Time in prison is not generally regarded as a laughing matter but there was no black humour involved in this pioneering event to ease stress among convicts.


In the wake of the Sherry Ann Duncan fiasco, which saw innocent men die in jail, the Justice Ministry has finally launched an overdue review of 561 other unsafe cases where prisoners are actually serving time. In another breakthrough, pregnant women will also be allowed up to a year after giving birth to care for their newborns before actually serving their prison terms under legislation approved by the Council of State, cabinet and tabled before the National Legislative Assembly.


This progress in penal reform is a welcome change from previous policies of merely removing offenders from the streets, cramming them so tightly in disease-ridden cells that they had to take turns to lie down, and then leaving them there to rot. Transgressors were often cast into a world of brutal exploitation and unfair treatment by guards with easy access to drugs, lack of separation of different categories of prisoners, rape, involuntary servitude, unwarranted beatings and a fierce competition for the basic necessities of survival.


Inmates already suffer punishment by being deprived of their freedom, losing their jobs and often their families and becoming social outcasts. Their lives are degraded to mere existence level. The Corrections Department must continue its enlightened policy of equipping prisoners with the qualities and skills they need for a successful return to society.

Bangkok Post

[Buyingtime]

PRISONS END 'KHAO DAENG' ERA
Corrections Department stops serving unpolished rice to inmates
Story by BHANRAVEE TANSUBHAPOL

The end of a legend or a bid for equality? That's the question raised by the Corrections Department's decision to stop giving prisoners khao daeng, or unpolished rice, with their meals. The traditional attitude towards khao daeng, which is looked down on, stems from the public's identification of it with prison life. In recent years, this feeling lost some of its hold as health-conscious urban families brought the unpolished grain to their tables and a whole new range of khao daeng appeared on supermarket shelves _ but the stigma remains elsewhere.

The equality argument comes from department officials, who say the move to serve white rice to all will put Thai and foreign prisoners on a level playing field. For years, foreign prisoners have been given white rice while their Thai counterparts continued to be given khao daeng, or red rice. The change means all prisoners will be served five-percent white rice _ the term for rice with no more than 5% broken grain.

In addition, thanks to the increase in the food budget from 31 baht per head per day to 42 baht, there will also be more variety beyond rice.

On special days of the month, prisoners can have noodles, congee with a choice of meat, or khanom jeen (rice-based vermicelli) with fish curry.

Previously, plain rice porridge was the only other option _ available on special days of the month.

Supachai Deesamud, head of the food section at Klong Prem prison, said the way the rice is cooked is also changing, to prevent waste.

''Previously, the rice was cooked in big pans and the prisoner-cooks had to keep stirring it until it was cooked,'' he said. ''The problem was that a large portion of the rice would be burnt, while some would remain half-cooked,'' he said. About 40kg of rice was lost daily due to this. The prisons now use steam cookers which guarantee 100% success. This should increase the yield of cooked rice by more than 20% although the process takes two hours, he said.

The Corrections Department has designed and produced the cookers, to be distributed to prisons around the country. Klong Prem prison initially received four cookers but this was not enough to cater for more than 4,620 inmates. It received eight more last month.

A recent survey showed that at least 98% of the prisoners wanted to eat white rice, while the rest wanted to alternate with unpolished rice due to its nutritious value and its reputation as a preventive for beriberi.

But it would cost the department more to provide that choice, he said. Big lots of one variety were cheaper to buy. ''Serving white rice has helped raised the morale of prisoners,'' he said.

Verapong Kriangsinyot of the Thai Health Foundation said the khao daeng the prisons previously served to prisoners was poor quality unpolished rice.

''There is a good quality unpolished type, like unpolished jasmine rice which is very expensive. But inmates were served a poor quality type that is not meant for human consumption. It's the grain used for bird food,'' he said.

He hoped the white rice would be of an acceptable standard. ''Inmates have the right to quality rice,'' he said.

The change has pleased prisoners.

Yodchart, 30, serving six years on a drug conviction, said the switch had improved his appetite and he could save the 15 baht per meal he was previously paying to buy white rice from the welfare section.

''If the department had not changed its policy, those who have no relatives to visit them would have had no choice but to eat red rice throughout their time here,'' said Yodchart.

Amnuay, 35, who was jailed for robbery, said the Corrections Department had made a step in the right direction in taking better care of prisoners.

''Eating white rice makes me feel like other people on the outside. Because it is less filling than red rice, it makes the savoury dishes taste better,'' said Amnuay, who has worked as a prison cook for three years.

The new cookers were easier to use than the pans, he said. They also saved cooks from being splattered with boiling water when stirring the rice.

Monthol, 45, who has been in jail for eight years on a drug conviction, said using pans was more exhausting than using the new cookers. He had slipped and fallen while stirring the large quantities being cooked in pans.

The cookers also allow prison cooks more free time, which they spend playing sport, while waiting for the rice to boil, Monthol said.

For Klong Prem prison, the change to white rice for all ends 54 years of the khao daeng regime, Mr Supachai added

Bangkok Post