page_title: Department of Corrections (Thailand)
section_title: Prisons and prison population
hierarchical_section_title: Department of Corrections (Thailand) / Prisons and prison population
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of incarceration rates worldwide by country. Data from: Highest to Lowest. By World Prison Brief.
context_page_description: The Department of Corrections is an agency of the Thai Ministry of Justice. Its mission is to keep prisoners in custody and rehabilitate them. Its headquarters is in Suanyai Sub-district, Mueang Nonthaburi District, Nonthaburi Province. As of 2020, Police Colonel Suchart Wongananchai is director-general of the department. Its FY2019 budget was 13,430 million baht.
context_section_description: Despite its population of only 70 million, Thailand ranks sixth in the world in prison population.
  Thailand's female incarceration rate is the world's highest at 66.4 female convicts per 100,000 inhabitants.
  The department manages 143 or 144 central prisons, provincial prisons, district prisons and other correctional facilities across Thailand, housing some 45,796 female (13.7 percent) and 288,483 male prisoners. Overcrowding has been reported at 143 prisons. The official capacity of all Thai prisons was 217,000 as of September 2015. By early 2020 the prison population had grown to 374,052 inmates, 288,648 of them drug offenders. Various remedies have been put forth to lower the prison population. Among them are fines or rehabilitation programs in lieu of prison time, community service in lieu of fines, ankle monitor home confinement, decriminalization of marijuana, and more suspended sentences.
  Overcrowded prisons result in meager food rations for inmates. The prison food and cooking gas budget in place since 2013 is 49 baht per day per inmate, but is capped at an average prison population of 190,200, far fewer than the more than 350,000 inmates held in June 2018. Many prisoners find it hard live on only state-provided food so, if they can afford it, they are permitted to spend up to 300 baht per day in prison shops.
  Eight of Thailand's prisons have all-female inmate populations. The remaining prisons have both male and female inmates, kept segregated in separate zones. Transsexuals number about 4,500 in Thai prisons. They are housed with male inmates, but some have separate sleeping quarters.
  According to the Department of Corrections, more than half of those incarcerated are there for an "offense against narcotics law". Some news reports say that the percentage is closer to 80 percent. The number is January 2020 is 288,648 drug offenders out of 374,052 total inmates, or 77 percent.
  Foreigners accounted for 4.6 percent of the prison population in September 2016. As of January 2020 14,275 foreign inmates from 103 countries were held in Thai prisons.
  Thailand's incarceration rate is 445 per 100,000 inhabitants (July 2017).
  In 2018, the DOC signed an agreement with Krung Thai Bank (KTB) to provide bank accounts to prisoners. In a trial run, up to 10,000 prisoners will be permitted to use KTB accounts for ATM withdrawals and e-banking. If successful, the program will be rolled out to all prisons. Until now, prison wardens have managed deposits from relatives of prisoners, enabling them to buy items ranging from soap to snacks at prison shops. The new program will remove wardens from inmate financial transactions, as some wardens have been accused of siphoning money from prisoner accounts. In one case, it is alleged that a 500 baht commission was taken by prison management from a 3,000 baht transaction.
  In 2015, the recidivism rate of Thai prisoners was 17 percent. In 2016 that rate rose to 25 percent and 33 percent in 2017. Most were imprisoned more than once for drug-related crimes. Of Thailand's roughly 350,000 prisoners, 180,000 of them first-time offenders, 60,000 second-time offenders and 15,000 third-time offenders. In some prisons, like Rayong Central Prison, about 90 percent of inmates are jailed for drug offences.
caption: A map of incarceration rates by country[5]
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