No money for e-tagging: jailers
Prisoners will not get an opportunity to walk out of jail with electronic tagging, despite a recently introduced regulation, until the Corrections Department acquires a budget to buy the devices.
“We don’t have any device to support the electronic tagging yet,” the department’s deputy director-general Kobkiat Kasiwiwat said. “The Budget Bureau has not yet allocated funds for thesedevices.”
Last Friday, a new ministerial regulation allowing convicts to serve a jail term outside correctional facilities was announced in the Royal Gazette. According to Kobkiat, the regulation will allow prisoners who have already served a third of their term to leave the correctional facilities if they have eligible needs. These prisoners will remain under surveillance of authorities – and electronic tagging would be crucial in the implementation of the regulation.
“The court will decide which prisoners should be allowed to serve a jail term outside correctional facilities,” he said.
He said the new regulation would apply to people detained during court trials too. However, Kobkiat said his department was not yet ready for the implementation of the new regulation. “We need the devices first.”
Kobkiat also dismissed criticism that the new regulation was designed to benefit powerful offenders. “That’s groundless. The decision on who should be let out of jail lies with the court,” he said.
Justice Minister Pracha Promnok said authorities would have to plan the surveillance and test devices too.
The Probation Department, meanwhile, said it might consider leasing the devices to comply with the regulation.
