Source: Scott's Bangkwang Time
Bangkwang Central Prison is a male maximum security prison built on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand in the 1930's. It was built to hold 3,500 prisoners but currently holds in the region of 8,000. It is known as "The Bangkok Hilton" in the West and in Thailand as "The Big Tiger" as it eats men alive.
The inmate population is made up of prisoners whose appeals are pending in the Appeal Court and Supreme Court, convicted prisoners whose terms of sentences range from twenty-five years to life imprisonment and prisoners who have been sentenced to the death sentence and are awaiting execution.
Until October 2003 execution was carried out by the firing squad, lethal injection is now used.
The prison compound covers an area of eighty acres which is divided up into thirteen sections. Within this compound are twenty-five workshops, an auditorium and a hospital. The outer walls rise to a height of six meters with a further one meter being underground and are equipped with high voltage wire. Inside there are additional walls around each section which are six meters high with barbed wire.
Prisoners spend fourteen hours a day locked up in their cells - from 4pm to 6am. Each cell measures six meters by four meters and has an Asian style open toilet in the corner. All night, every night, your body is in contact with those either side of you, movement is severely restricted. A bare electric light bulb burns through the night.
The prisoners do not have the luxury of fresh hot or cold running water. Washing is carried out by using water pumped from the local river into troughs. Drinking water can be purchased if you have the funds. Once a day the prison provides a meal of red rice with a thin watery soup which occasionally contains some vegetable matter and the odd fish head or tail.
There is no proper sewerage system, the prison has an open sewerage system which carries human excrement to concrete vaults. The toxic fumes which are omitted from the open sewer also have an effect on the health of inmates.
The overcrowding, poor quality and insufficient diet leads to malnutrition. It is also the cause of many easily transferable diseases, many of which if left untreated are life threatening.
The consequences of the conditions in Bangkwang mean that there are many prisoners suffering from illness and disease. TB and HIV are rife. The most common illnesses/diseases are skin and fungal infections, heatstroke, dehydration, bedbugs, lice, diarrhoea, scabies, dysentery, typhoid fever, hepatitis A, B & C, malaria, cholera and diphtheria. Although the staff at the prison try their best they are extremely under funded.
Dental care is carried out by unqualified prisoners who provide a tooth extraction service.
Source: Bangkwang Net
Some nations, such as America, have special treaty arrangements to bring their nationals "home" to their own prison systems. A few are making slow progress toward a treaty. Still others have no arrangements whatsoever.
Some nations provide a minimal financial support. Others simply abandon their nationals to their own individual fates. With no external support, this means a dull intellectual existance, uncertain health circumstances and a minimal diet. Many inmates work long hours at a prison shop to pay for their minimal necesities of life ( ie : tooth brush and soap ).
You can discover your nation's policy by contacting your nation's Consulate, Embassy or Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Please consider writing to one or more of your imprisoned countrymen.
Your letters and a small amount of money can provide hope to a grateful soul.
Better yet, why not visit someone during your next trip through Bangkok or Kathamndu?
( NOTE : There are often delays to the "contact visit" schedule. Be "flexible" with travel plans. )
KLONG PREM "contact visits" were in January.
BANGKWANG "contact visits" are possible every FRIDAY. Get permission from prisoner's embassy.
It is NOT necessary to already know someone in the prison.
Prisoners names can be easily obtained at the prison's main office building or from other web-sites.
Your nation's embassy may be willing to supply the names of your countrymen by phone, mail or e-mail. More often, you will need to visit the embassy in-person.
updated October 20, 2007
