The ‘injustice’ system
Re: “Unburden deathtrap jails”, (Editorial, April 1).
The Bangkok Post is right that a proposal from the Thailand Institute of Justice’s (TIJ) executive director Kittipong Kittayarak should be promptly followed, however radical it might appear. The proposal to free several groups of prisoners crammed into Thailand’s famously overcrowded system is measured. It is sensible and rational. It is informed. It is compassionate and humane. It is, in short, just.
When a society locks people up to protect itself from harm by offenders, which is the sole moral justification for any prison sentence, it has an obligation to care for those it has locked up. If it refuses to provide adequate care, then the incarceration becomes unjust. At the moment, the required social distancing cannot be maintained in Thai prisons, which means that the Thai prison system is even more of an “injustice system” than it has traditionally been.
But the injustice in the Thai and many other traditional prison systems grievously flouts good morals. To the groups of prisoners the TIJ suggests be released, a further group needs to be added. Those who ought never have been imprisoned in the first place should also be released.
Specifically, release all who are truly guilty of nothing more than a victimless crime, which includes all drug crimes, gambling and similar personal vices that do not, in themselves, directly harm or threaten others. There has never been any justification for locking people up merely because they drink red wine or shoot up heroin, because they sell Singha beer or deal ya ba, because they gamble or bet on dice with friends, or because they freely consent to buying and selling adult sex. Victimless crimes are exactly that: victimless.
Yes, if someone has a track record of drinking and driving, or if their drug use combined with driving harms or directly threatens to harm others, imprisonment is justified.
If someone deliberately breaches social distancing guidelines for no good reason, that is a crime that threatens others so they might justly be punished. If, however, the people involved in that violation were forced to do it by the official justice system, then it is the prison system that is guilty of the crime committed against its victims.
FELIX QUI