Showing 41 - 50 of 50
Overwhelming odds get better of efforts to stamp out prison drug trade
Spectrum, Piyaporn Wongruang, Published on 09/09/2012
» In the early morning of Aug 18, Nakhon Si Thammarat prison warder Od Sae Pua was shot dead on the way home from the prison where he worked for years. The reason was simply that he had refused to help smuggle drugs into the prison and that he reported the attempt to bribe him to do so to his bosses.
For Belarusian troupe, show must go on despite dangers
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 19/08/2012
» Thespians of the Belarus Free Theatre have been beaten, arrested and harassed by authorities. And husband-and-wife co-directors Nicolai Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada, as they explained to Spectrum last week while on a visit to Bangkok, are now forced to live in exile, facing prison sentences if they return home. Within Belarus _ their large landlocked country of just under 10 million people, bordered by Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania _ the actors continue to perform in secret and at great risk to themselves and their audiences.
Dead child walking
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 22/07/2012
» Just returned from a visit to Bangkok's notorious Bang Kwang prison, Toshi Kazama is ready to talk about criminal justice. On a rainy evening at the Foreign Correspondents' Club last week, the Japanese-born photographer shows slides of his photographs of juvenile offenders and speaks about the complexities of capital punishment. He has been photographing young people on death row since 1996, mostly in the US, where he has lived since the age of 15, and more recently across Asia.
Locked up women find fresh outlook thanks to royal programme
Spectrum, Suthon Sukphisit, Published on 24/06/2012
» Of Thailand's 25,000 female prisoners, 85% are there due to drug-related offences. Compared to other world prison populations, this percentage is inordinately high, as is that of the rising number of female inmates in relation to male inmates _ some 17% of Thailand's prison population is female. Many are arrested after becoming involved in the drug trade, used as tools by dealers. As young as 18, they are drawn into the wrong kind of company, their gullibility exploited. They tend to be girls with little education from poor families who are desperate for money.
I just called to say I'm locked up
Spectrum, Frank Lombard, Published on 20/05/2012
» Let's call him Bait. He's a Thai man in his early 30s who recently served five years at Khlong Prem Prison in Bangkok on a narcotics charge. Bait left prison before the floods of November 2011. He says that in his prison zone everyone had access to a mobile phone. About one-third of prisoners owned one, he says, while the rest shared. Bait said both convicts and prison staff knew exactly what was going on, and that officials controlled the supply of mobile phones in the prison and ignored their use.
Hopes few for slum dwellers drowning in 'ocean of meth'
Spectrum, Frank Lombard, Published on 29/04/2012
» The police tend to call communities with substandard housing "red zones", while others call them slums. There are over 400 in Bangkok. One thing nearly all have in common is that they are saturated with amphetamines. Ask residents and they will tell you that most everyone except the very young and very old is on ya ba. Yes, there are some who abstain and no one gives them any problems.
The jailhouse rocked ... Well, not quite
Spectrum, Published on 01/04/2012
» Let's call him Stan. That's not his real name, as this recently released prisoner doesn't want to get into even deeper trouble than he was last December and January, when for a period of almost one month, he was incarcerated at Samut Prakan prison.
With attitude and tattoos, hope is delivered to inmates
Spectrum, Published on 12/02/2012
» Heather Luna-Rose works 12 hour days, driving taxis around a small island off the west coast of Canada. She does this every day for eight months, just so she can spend the rest of her year in Thailand talking to foreign men in prison.
At first taste of freedom, dreams of a new path
Spectrum, Published on 29/01/2012
» It was Jan 12, the night before they were freed. Pyone Cho, a leading member of the 88 Generation Students Group detained in the remote Kawthaung Prison in southern Myanmar's Tenasserim Division, was immersed in a weekly journal when a prison guard he hadn't noticed standing in front of his cell asked him what he was reading.
Rising youth crime levels confound justice system
Spectrum, Tunya Sukpanich, Published on 22/01/2012
» On Jan 11, five teenagers in Si Sa Ket province were arrested for shooting and killing an innocent woman. They later confessed to police that they were involved in a conflict with other teenagers in the village and one of them, in a rage, got hold of a gun and fired randomly into the woman's house, killing her.