SENTENCING MADNESS!!

Crime: Japanese tycoon Yoshiaki Tsutsumi was busted for corporate fraud that netted him $180 million.

Punishment: $43.000 fine and a suspended sentence.

 

Crime: Twenty- year old Tremain Scott from Kansas, US, shot a man 18 times at close range.

Punishment:  Since it’s a “none- drug” crime: four to six years in prison

 

Crime: Major General Adam Damiri who led the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, charged with the deaths of 1000 people.

Punishment: Three year’s prison by the Human Rights Court in Jakarta.

 

Crime: Toronto Canada: Nurse and convicted child abductor Essau Davis raped a mentally and physically disabled female patient.

Punishment: Four years in prison.

 

Crime: Florida: Disabled father of three Richard Paey faked a doctors note to get painkillers.

Punishment: 25 years for drug trafficking- even prosecutors admitted he didn’t sell the pill’s.

 

Crime: California, USA: Robert Blasi stole a packet of AA batteries.

Punishment: 31 years in prison, under the “three strikes” law, where repeat crimes are given huge sentences after their third arrest.

 

Crime: Utah, US: Weldon Angelos, 25 sold $350 of Marijuana.

Punishment: 55 years in prison, thanks to US Federal mandatory sentence guidelines. (Raping a child gets 11 years)

 

Crime: Vermont, USA: Stephen Bain, 52 stole 280 litres of maple syrup.

Punishment: Life in prison. The prosecutor went for a “ Lengthy”  sentence since Bain did time for Dope possession.

 

Crime: Bangkok Thailand: Steve Willcox English Citizen Possession of 25 grams class A drug.

Punishment: 33 ½ years in prison $20.000 fine – even prosecutors admitted he was not selling drugs and were found in a house he was renting, the drugs were for his own consumption!

 

THE FIRST FIVE DAYS

By Bert Bratoo

                                                                                             

Below is a list of 25 questions we guarantee you will ask yourself over the first five days spent in Thai Prison should you be unlucky enough to experience it first hand.

The accompanying answers are given after a brief survey of the Foreign Prisoners held in Bangkwang on drug convictions. We have recorded the most popular answers and given explanations for the uninitiated. We sincerely hope it will highlight the confusion and bewilderment felt by us all as we were slung into a dungeon unlike no other, and then the key was tossed away.

 

Day 1 – Ground Zero

 

Q1: What is my name?

A: After days or weeks of custody and interrogation at a Police station or the drug suppression unit, having been dragged out to court on at least one occasion without the slightest idea of what the hearing was about, you will arrive at the prison gates exhausted, frightened and utterly confused. Your name will become unimportant. From now on you will be known as ‘you you!’ and will be addressed like that every time you are spoken to. Like it or not, it is advisable to get used to it. They will be calling you it until you leave.

 

 Q2: Will I be sexually assaulted?

A: Not if you are not inclined but during your stay in prison you will be witness to every kind of sexual deviance and depravity known to man. It is so open and cannot be avoided. Aids is the second biggest killer in Thai prisons next to tuberculosis.

 

Q3: What are my rights?

A: You no longer have any.

 

Q4: Why am I being shackled inside prison?

A: Every prisoner in Thailand is at one stage or another put into shackles. These are hammered onto his ankles, welded and connected with a heavy chain. Drug prisoners, until very recently were shackled as a matter of policy when entering prison custody and the minimum period before removal was three months though many prisoners were subject to deliberate delays in removal that ran into months or sometimes years. Prisoners sentenced to death never have the shackles removed. The rules have recently been relaxed but even now a prisoner will be shackled on several occasions during his incarceration. Shackles are also used as a form of punishment even though use of  restrains in punishment is strictly outlawed by the United Nations Charter for the treatment of prisoners. No shackles are used at the Women’s prison.

 

Q5: Will I need money?

A: Yes, and plenty of it! Everything you will need from now on you will have to pay for, especially if you are planning to continue eating on a regular basis. You will also be expected to pay for everything else including your clean drinking water, bedding, clothing, medical supplies, toiletries, dry goods and other daily necessities. Your cash money however will be ‘confiscated’ at the Gatehouse search on entry and that’s the last you’ll sea of it so you’ll need a  friend to come down and open a prisoner account for you. You cannot open your own account. It can take a month or more from opening an account for a prisoner to be able to use his funds. Until an account is established for you, you will have to eat the one festering meal per-day that the prison provides. Everything else you will have to beg, borrow, steal or perform a service for. Nothing is free and a ‘friendly’ loan can often carry an extraordinary interest rate. As a rule, if you don’t get your own funds organised pretty damn quickly, then you’re in for the roughest of rides.

 

Day No 2- “So it wasn’t a nightmare, it’s really happening!”

 

Q6: How am I supposed to know who is who?

A: There will be men in uniforms. Some are prison officers, some are prisoner trustees. You wont know the difference and both will be barking orders and pushing you around with equal self importance. Same goes for the other prisoners who will also be trying to tell you what to do. Some officers will be bare chested, shuffling around in slippers looking for all intents and purposes like another prisoner while ordinary prisoners in jail uniform can look remarkably like prison officers to the untrained eye; and forget trying to figure out who is who by what they are doing. Trustees do all the prison work including gate keeping and locking down. Anyone in an office sweating over the paperwork will be a prisoner. The officers will be the ones gawking at T.V., reading a comic or with his feet up gonking his way through forty winks.

The only true way of sorting the screws from the soup is the ‘Trouser Test’. Prisoners are strictly forbidden to wear long trousers and so the quick appraisal of the length of a blokes trousers will tell you all you need to know.

 

Q7: Who do I trust?

A: Nobody. 

 

Q8: Can I call the Embassy, a Lawyer or my Family?

A: No.

 

Q9: How do I get a blanket to sleep on?

A: You will be sleeping on bare concrete and so it is advisable to buy some blankets to sleep on. These must be purchased from the prison shop, but cannot be bought by you, even with an active prison account. Only visitors can purchase blankets and send them in to you. (see Q13) you may get lucky and be loaned one but will probably find out much too late that the last owner has just died or that it comes complete with a heavy dose of scabies.

 

Q10: Who is responsible for my welfare?

A: You are.

 

Day No 3 – Reality setting in.

 

Q11: What do I eat and when?

A: With no immediate funds you will be forced to allay your hunger by eating the prison ‘Animal Grade’ Red Rice and stinking fish head broth brought around once each day on an old cart. You will have to scrounge yourself up a plastic bowl, or failing that, plastic bag to have the muck ladled into by whoever’s job it is to throw food at you that day. There is no such thing as a queue here (unless its to kiss an officers ass) and if you don’t fight your way to the food there will be nothing left by the time you get to it. You will know the slop barrow has arrived by the stench and the crowed. If you don’t have a spoon then use your hands.

 

Q12: How will I know what to do, when to do it, and what the Prison Rules are?

A: You will never see a list of rules, not even in Thai. Prison rules in Thailand are chameleon like and change on a weekly, daily or hourly basis, or when it’s raining,…..or when it’s not….You wont have any ideas what is going on, nor will anyone explain. You will be pushed here, pulled there, dragged around and forced in front of officers on your knees or haunches. That you don’t speak their language doesn’t seem to deter them. They will shout, bawl, holler and scream. You wont know if they mean you or the poor sod on his knees alongside you. Try to do what everyone else does and go where they go. Identify the ones with sticks. Stay clear of them. Don’t do anything first, don’t ever be the last.

 

Q13: How do I contact anyone outside?

A: Only one way exists, by mail. Letters are heavily screened, often duplicated, and are deliberately delayed not only to discourage contact with the outside but also to thwart any notions you have about defending yourself at your forthcoming trial. It can take weeks for someone to receive your letters and vice-versa, including your Embassy, but very often those are intercepted and removed altogether. Even if you have managed to remember everyone’s name and full postal address (Thai addresses are notoriously difficult to remember) you will still need to purchase pen, paper, envelope and stamp (see Q5)

 

Q14: Where do I shower?

A: The nearest thing to a shower is that huge open-air animal trough filled with filthy water. Shower times are strictly controlled and daily it’s a battle amongst hundreds of other prisoners all trying to scoop up the water, soak themselves and soap up. People urinate and masturbate amongst the scramble. You will be shin deep in other peoples shower water and urine.

 

Q15: Where do I get soap, toothbrush, paste and a towel?

A: See question 5

  

Day No 4 – Groundhog day

 

Q16: Who do I see when I’ve got a problem?

A: Anyone who will listen. It wont do you an ounce of good in the long run but might help you feel better.

 

Q17: Can I buy my way out?

A: Generally if you have made it as far as the prison gates your chances of slipping away by bribing police officials have just been lost. From now on you’ll need obscene amounts of cash, very lofty connections and a long string of corrupt officials to help smooth your way to a verdict which will allow you to walk.

There will be a long line of Lawyers, Shysters and Crooks only too willing to relieve you of your fortune in return for promises of a favourable verdict, a paid Prosecutor or Judge, or a rigged Bail Hearing. Good Luck!

 

Q18: Can I trust my Lawyer?

A: Insanity is not a defence in Thailand.

 

Q19: Where is my property that was confiscated at the gate?

A: What property?

 

Q20: What if I get sick?

A: You will have to sign on a ‘Sick’ register to be examined by a doctor. Often, this must take place up to seven days in advance of getting to see any qualified medical official. You must plan carefully so that you are sick on the day you are due to be examined at the hospital. No point in seeing a doctor when you are well. You should allow at least one month before being ill in order that you may collect a prescription from the prison doctor, mail it out to your embassy so they can purchase the medicines and deliver them back to the prison. They are then returned to the hospital, who will steal or exchange the drugs for cheap local counterfeits. Try to stay out of the prison hospital at all costs. It’s a morgue!!

 

Day No5 – “Someone must know I’m here!

 

Q21: Where is the toilet paper?

A: Attached to your left wrist.

 

Q22: Will I have to work?

A: They will try it on, even going as far as slinging you into solitary to persuade you. Most Thai and Asian prisoners are driven into unpaid slave labour in order to line the pockets of prison staff running moonlight manufacturing businesses off the backs of prisoners. Strictly against international law but for prisoners from Asian countries like Burma, with no consulate, representation in Thailand  international law doesn’t count for very much. Prisoners are forced to work to impossible quotas and deadlines and are often beaten and refused food as a punishment. Western prisoners have Embassy representation and are left alone as a rule.

 

Q23: Was I set up in any way?

A: Almost Certainly.

 

Q24: When will I get a straight answer to my questions?

A: Not in this lifetime Pal!

 

Q25: Am I in trouble?

A: More than you ever dreamed possible!