JUVENILE CRIME PREVENTION IN THAILAND
Chotima Suraritthidham *I. INTRODUCTION
Many social problems arouse public concern. One of them is juvenile delinquency,
which has been a concern for a long time. This paper presents a brief scope and the duties
for juvenile crime prevention of the Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection(DJOP), which is an organization in the Thai juvenile justice system. The paper shows
statistical data of juvenile delinquency and important processes leading to crime
prevention, particularly assessments before adjudication hearing and interventions injuvenile training centres, which are secure confinements for youth. Challenges andsolutions are combined in each topic as well.
The DJOP was established to serve juvenile and family courts before adjudication
hearings and after dispositional hearings for juvenile delinquents. It has duties asestablished by the Juvenile Court and the Juvenile Procedure Act (B.E. 2553) and theAdministration of Juvenile Delinquent Rehabilitation Act (B.E. 2561). The goal of the
DJOP is to reduce recidivism of juveniles who are adjudicated as delinquent. Minors whoare charged and enter the juvenile and family court system are under the age of 18 years
and not less than the age of 10 years. The DJOP supervises Juvenile Observation andProtection Centres (JOP) located in all 77 provinces of Thailand and 19 Juvenile Training
Centres (JTCs) in main provinces such as Bangkok, Chiang-mai, Rayong, and Song-kha.
The JOP centres serve juveniles before adjudication, while the JTCs serve the juvenile
after the family court has entered an official disposition order to commit the juvenile. The
DJOP’s responsibilities, thus, are related to the processes before the adjudicational andafter the dispositional phases.
A JOP centre works as an intake unit. At the initial phase of a juvenile court process,all juvenile offenders are referred immediately to the JOP centre. Some of them can betaken into custody by court order. They will be placed in juvenile detention at the JOP
centre. The detention provides services for the welfare, health and safety of the detained
juveniles. Furthermore, probation officers of the JOP centre conduct pre-disposition
reports of all referred juveniles to a juvenile and family court to determine an appropriate
disposition.
The pre-disposition report provides essential information for a judge to decide the best
disposition and sanctions based on each case and suitable to the youth’s needs. It outlines
the juvenile’s background (i.e. the current offence, the juvenile’s past offences, asummary of information concerning family relationships, home environment, thejuvenile’s educational and employment progress, and results of psychologicalassessment), a level of a likelihood of future reoffending, a summary of the availability of*

Director, Samutsongkam Juvenile Observation and Protection Centre, Department of Juvenile Observation
and Protection, Thailand.

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alternative dispositions, and a treatment plan including recommendations for services
which are expected to reduce the likelihood of recidivism for a juvenile offender.
After the disposition phase, juvenile delinquents whom a judge decides to place in aconfinement facility will be incarcerated in a JTC for periods generally ranging from a
few months to a few years. The JTC is commonly known as a juvenile correctional
institution. It not only serves incarcerated youths for basic needs, but it also provides
rehabilitative treatment programmes, academic and vocational education. If youths have aduration of incarceration for four months, they will be transferred to a reintegration phaseand participate in a reintegration programme to prepare to return home, such as planningfor their futures. The programme is offered by a social worker and other professional
staff. After completing this phase, youths will be released from the JTC and will receive
assistance for resettling for one year after release. In addition, the DJOP tracks therecidivism of these youth for three years by checking their re-arrest history from the
Criminal Records Division, Royal Thai Police Headquarters.
II. JUVENILE CRIME STATISTICS
According to the DJOP’s statistics of juvenile crime from the fiscal years 2016 to
2019, 1 the numbers of juvenile offenders have continually decreased each year. The
number of juveniles arrested and referred to JOP centres were 30,361 in 2016 and 20,934
in 2019. The percentage decrease is 31. Male offenders consistently accounted for morethan 90 per cent of arrests of those under age 18. The number of offenders who are 17
years of age is the highest every year. The most common juvenile crimes in Thailand are
drug law violations (51% of arrests in 2019), property crimes (14% of arrests in 2019),
and offences affecting life and body (10% of arrests in 2019), respectively. These top
three crimes are the same each year. However, the percentage of property crimes andoffences affecting life and body has gradually decreased since 2015, whereas thepercentage of drug law violations has increased. Of every 1,000 youths in 2018, threejuveniles were arrested and referred to the JOP centres. The highest arrest rate is seven,which is in the Northeast of Thailand.
For the level of youths’ future reoffending, approximately 77 per cent of youth whoare assessed have moderate risk of future reoffending, 16 per cent have low risk and 7 percent have high risk. Three-fifths of all youths held in JTCs had a moderate risk ofrecidivism. As a result, the JTCs have to provide treatments and rehabilitation
programmes affecting the reduction of the likelihood of recidivism of incarcerated youths.
Drawing on DJOP data on 4,167 juveniles who were released from JTCs in 2015, thereport found almost half (45 per cent) had been arrested again within three years after
release. Also, 41 per cent of the 4,263 juveniles released in 2016 were rearrested. The
report showed that the highest rate of rearrest was in the first year after release. Most
released juveniles committed drug and property offences. Nevertheless, the number ofjuveniles who reoffended and who have been diverted from the juvenile justice system isobviously small, which is less than 10 per cent. Most juveniles recommit drug offences.

1

Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection (2019). Juvenile crime statistics.

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Therefore, emphasis is placed on important processes leading to the reduction of therecidivism rate of incarcerated juveniles in JTCs.
III. JUVENILE CRIME PREVENTION
A. Classification in Juvenile Observation and Protection Centres
For JOP centres, most tasks relating to crime prevention are completed before
dispositional hearing. These tasks are investigation, assessment and making a predisposition report. There is an important intake interview by a probation officer. Youths
arrested for an offence eligible for juvenile court will be referred to JOP centres by thepolice. The probation officers use the Risk and Needs Assessment Instrument (RNI) as a
guideline for interviewing these youths. The RNI has an objective to assist the probation
officers to collect relevant information which can identify a likelihood (or risk) of future
reoffending and also youths’ needs for treatments and interventions. This instrument
contains many items reflecting personal characteristics and life circumstances. The
probation officers use this information to make recommendations about dispositions andservices matching the youth’s needs (i.e. a plan for rehabilitation). The intake process
takes about 1.30 hours. Also, the RNI needs the probation officers to gather further
relevant information by interviewing the youth’s parents and visiting the youth’s home,community and school.
The RNI was developed by DJOP’s multidisciplinary team including psychologists,
probation officers, nurses and social workers, as well as professionals from universities.
The theory behind the RNI is the Risk-Need-Responsivity Model (RNR). It is used for
guiding offender assessments and treatments. The RNI includes eight domains ofcriminogenic risks and needs which are family, education and vocation, history ofoffending, delinquent peers, environment, conduct behaviours, drug use and physical andmental health problems. Each domain has items. Most items are scored, and a total score
identifies a likelihood of recidivism, which includes low, moderate and high risk. As the
RNI has to be scored for calculating the level of risk which is more complicated, it haschanged from paper and pencil to a computer-based programme, which automaticallycalculates individuals’ level of risk of recidivism after entering the data into the RNI
programme.
The RNI is functional because its result is more objective and accurate than only
professional judgment; however, there are challenges. First of all, probation officers needadditional interviewing skills training and related knowledge (e.g. forensic psychology
and criminology) to help them establish a good relationship and also gain more relevant
and reliable information from youths and their parents. Second, errors of information andmissing values in the RNI database need to be improved as statistics provided by data
which are full of errors have limitations for analysis and interpretation. Finally, the RNI
needs to be reconsidered and amended. There is new empirical evidence and knowledgeof criminogenic risks and needs, methods of assessment and other significant models
associated with crime prevention (i.e. the Good Lives Model). That information can be
developed and applied to the RNI. Additionally, some items in each domain of the RNI
should be re-examined for receiving more statistical significance. The DJOP is aware ofan opportunity for development, so the RNI is being revised and improved.
B. Reassessment and Interventions in Juvenile Training Centres
JTCs offer secure confinement. Practitioners in the JTCs are composed of two
psychologists, two social workers, two nurses, academic instructors and vocational
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instructors. They work as a multidisciplinary team to provide interventions forincarcerated juveniles. First of all, the multidisciplinary team reassesses and further
interviews youths for assigning youth to housing, identifying a level of supervision andmaking an individual rehabilitation plan. The objectives of the plan are to make sure that
the JTCs provide specific services meeting each youth’s basic needs, to define eachyouth’s criminogenic needs and match them to interventions and treatment programmes,
and to keep youths occupied with productive activities. As there are a limited number ofprofessionals for running the interventions and treatment programmes for juveniles, theDJOP trains the instructors to get more knowledge and essential skills for being juveniles’
counsellors. Each counsellor is assigned a group of youths to supervise until they are
released. The counsellors have two main duties, which include advising youths andensuring that the youths receive interventions and attend activities as planned.
For implementation of an individual rehabilitation plan, after the multidisciplinary
team gathers complete information, a conference is set for discussing and making adecision on the youth’s rehabilitation plan. Even though all incarcerated youths haverehabilitation plans tailored to their needs, there is an important challenge existing. These
plans are sometimes difficult to completely implement. As juveniles can be categorized inmany groups depending on their needs, the JTC needs good management to scheduleenough practitioners to run several interventions and activities at the same time. In fact,some JTCs do not have enough practitioners to conduct treatment programmes for youths
having serious problems, as well as some basic activities such as programmes assisting
youths to adapt themselves for living in the JTC. Psychologists and social workers areavailable for youths with serious needs, especially mental health problems and mental
disorders, and also they have to look after all youths in the JTC to assure that the youths
do not have a high level of negative emotions (e.g. anxiety and depression), and staff
provide mental health services when they are necessary.
For interventions, most programmes are designed to solve criminogenic needs andstrengthen life skills for living in harmony with the community even though there are no
specific treatment programmes made only for serious types of offenders. Psychologists
use Forensic Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (FCBT), which focuses on cognition, toadjust antisocial attitudes and inappropriate values and beliefs. Anger management andcommunication programmes are examples of utilizing FCBT. FCBT programmes will beassigned to youths who have a high risk of recidivism with having criminal thoughts,
which are identified by psychologists’ assessments. Although JTCs do not have specifictreatment programmes for serious types of offenders, the JTCs design a system andinterventions for responding to these groups of offenders. For serious and high-risk
offenders, the JTCs have the system of Individual Routing Counselor (IRC). It is anintensive intervention that provides monitoring, supervising and support for youths. Eachyouth of this group is assigned an IRC. The IRC provides assistance and supervision
since youths arrive at a facility until one year after they are released. One IRC receives 10- 12 youths to supervise. At first, the DJOP’s research on the IRC system showed that it
significantly reduced the rate of juvenile recidivism. After implementation of the IRC
system in all JTCs, a few challenges for recidivism prevention were found to exist. Oneof them is an insufficiency of experience and skills of some IRCs to handle serious
juvenile cases. The DJOP offers mentors to coach the IRCs who need a consultant forwork and also provides intensive trainings to enhance their competencies and knowledge.
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workplaces to give any suggestions and support. This assistance is likely to make IRCs
have more confidence in their jobs.
The DJOP launched a campaign to stop all forms of violence in JTCs a few years ago.
Staff and practitioners are trained how to positively communicate and manage negative
behaviours instead of harsh control. “Do and Don’t” regulations were implemented toreduce interpersonal violence for staff and youths. In addition, the physical and mental
health situation of each youth has become a concern. The DJOP set the standard rules ofproviding physical and mental health services to guarantee that all youths will be given
appropriate services relating to good physical and mental health while they areincarcerated in the JTCs.
According to the Act for the Procedure for Juvenile and Family Court of B.E. 2553
and the Administration of Rehabilitation for Juvenile Delinquents Act of B.E. 2561, all
JTCs have to provide education for all incarcerated youths. When youths enter the JTCs,
they have to continue their study in non-formal and informal education if they have notfinished grade 9. However, youths can study vocational education as an extra course
while they are studying primary or secondary education. A big challenge of providing
education is an insufficiency of instructors who can teach basic education. The DJOP
handles this by taking on educational partners to become involved with the educational
activities within the JTCs. These partnerships seem promising; nevertheless, someeducational partners can only participate temporally. Good organization to maintaineffective collaboration needs to be a top concern.
C. Reintegration
When incarcerated youths enter the reintegration phase, which is about four months
before release, social workers provide activities to prepare youths for going back homeand living in their communities. In this phase, youths have an opportunity to work as
trainees in workplaces. Social workers contact entrepreneurial partners to recruit youths
who are interested in working. Youths who want to continue their studies will also get
support such as educational funds and information to apply to schools. Family guidance isalso available for youths’ families and parents to help them understand youths’ changes
while they are incarcerated in JTCs and to be able to support them as they adjust to newenvironments after release.
Furthermore, youths in the reintegration phase will have their criminogenic risks andneeds reassessed. Their families are also interviewed to identify current situations of theirrelationships, economics, home environments, and families’ concern about youths. The
information gained from the assessment and interview will be used to make an individual
reintegration plan. This plan determines the frequency of visiting youths, specificassistance and services that are necessary for reducing the likelihood of recidivism after
youths are released. The plan covers only one year after release. Partners in communities
have a role to supervise and support some youths. They work as assistants to social
workers. Only youths who are identified as having a low level of risk and needs will beassigned to the partners.
There are five elements that the DJOP uses as indicators of successful reintegration.
The elements include study or work, having productive leisure or recreation, associatingwith conventional peers, having good relationships with family and having an appropriate
place to live. These elements are a part of the Good Lives Model (GLM) of offender142

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rehabilitation for lives in transition. 2,3 The GLM assumes that enhancing personalfulfilment will lead to a reduction of criminogenic needs. It promotes an alternative andenhancement to RNR by focusing on positive factors and strengths of offenders. The fiveelements are used to make a reintegration plan for youth in the reintegration phase. Most
assistance and services are offered to youths during this phase to help them accomplish
those five elements.
A challenge in the reintegration phase is that a social worker of a JTC has to referyouths and their reintegration plans to social workers of JOP centres located in provinces
where they will live after leaving the JTCs. The social workers of the JOP centres have
responsibilities to supervise and assist them at least one year after release. As a result, thesocial workers of the JOP centres have to develop good relationships with youths andtheir parents for a certain time period. A poor relationship between a social worker andhis/her clients can lead to failure of following the plans and loss of cases.
D. Community Cooperation
Having good partnership is important for the DJOP’s operations to reach its ultimate
goal, which is a reduction of juvenile recidivism. Roles of partners in communities can beclassified into four types. They are roles of support or enhancing any activities related totreatment programmes, basic and vocational education, employment and study, andsupervision of youths after release. Partners can be any person in communities,
organizations, companies, schools and so on. However, their qualifications have to meetthe DJOP’s criteria.
Building cooperation with partners for working with JOP centres and JTCs aredesigned by using the concept of public participation. Participation can start at a moderatelevel to an intensive level. The DJOP expects an intensive level of participation forworking with partners. The intensive level is engagement. At this level, partners haveopportunities to give feedback and receive information, plan, make decisions and work
together with the centres.
There are a few processes of seeking and preparing partners for working with JOP
centres and JTCs. First, each youth’s needs, according to the five elements of the GLM,
are surveyed, and then the survey data are used to seek partners whose roles match theyouths’ needs. The partners who are interested in working with the centres and supporting
youths will get essential information to clarify their roles and explain how to work withyouths, such as information about the centres’ mission and duties, juvenile delinquency,
factors relating to delinquency and tertiary crime prevention. Then, a conference between
the centres and partners will be held for sharing, discussing and making an annual
operation plan. A few challenges include an inconsistency of encouraging partnerships
and insufficiency of maintaining strong relationships between partners and the centres.
However, the DJOP usually reviews and evaluates outputs and processes as well as
obstacles found in operations, and it will propose new solutions and methods to solve theproblems at the end of the year.
2

Ward, T. (2002). Good lives and the rehabilitation of offenders: Promises and problems. Aggression andViolent Behavior, 7(5), 513-528.
3
Fortune, C. A., Ward, T., & LL Polaschek, D. (2014). The Good Lives Model and therapeutic
environments in forensic settings. Therapeutic Communities: The International Journal of TherapeuticCommunities, 35(3), 95-104.

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IV. CONCLUSION
The trend of juvenile crime in Thailand has continually decreased for a few years;
however, the rate of juvenile recidivism is likely to stabilize. The DJOP is responsible forcrime prevention, particularly reducing juvenile recidivism. Important operations of the
DJOP leading to tertiary crime prevention comprise our significant processes which areassessing juveniles’ criminogenic risks and needs, appropriately matching interventions
and juveniles’ criminogenic needs, reintegrating incarcerated juveniles before releasefrom JTCs and supporting community cooperation for crime prevention. There are somechallenges that the DJOP has been working on, such as a revision of an assessment tooland sustainability of operations.

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