Dahn Batchelor's Opinions

Should HIV carriers who have unprotected sex be imprisoned?

Vincent Walkem, a resident of Toronto was charged with infecting two women without telling them that he was HIV-positive. The 30-year-old man described himself in court as "extremely selfish" but not "a monster" for having sex with two women while ignoring orders from health officials to tell his partners he was infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

With his victims looking on, Vincent Walkem explained to a packed courtroom that he thought AIDS was a "manageable, chronic disease," information he said he learned from "the community" and a doctor.

I don’t know what doctor he spoke to but I am confident that the doctor would have told him that HIV is a communicable disease and that he was not to have unprotected sex with a partner and that if he did insist on having unprotected sex with a sexual partner, he was to advise his partner that he was HIV positive.

His lawyer, Graham Clarke, asked him why he never told one victim, then 18 while he was 26, about his condition. He replied,"There's nothing I could say to explain or justify my actions," I wished it had never happened. My own sense of insecurity clouded my judgment. Every day I wanted to talk to her about it. The days turned into weeks, the weeks to months. I have no excuse."

He’s right. There was no excuse for him continuing to have sex with his victim and not tell her that he was HIV positive.

The woman, now 23, later learned from one of Walkem's co-workers at a west end clothing store that he was HIV-positive. Earlier, she told the court she was stunned at learning the bad news, later discovering that she, too, had the virus which she obviously got from Walkem.

She is now on a steady regimen of drugs and continual blood tests that has left her weak and at times depressed. She gave up a dream of becoming a dancer and is in university pursuing a new career.

Fortunately for the other woman, she wasn’t infected.
Earlier, Walkem pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated sexual assault.

Prosecutor Mary Humphrey asked Justice Arthur Gans to send Walkem to prison for eight years while his own lawyer asked the judge to give him conditional sentence, which usually means house arrest. Gans, told the court that he was not in a "conditional sentence state of mind but reserved his decision until January 19th, 2007.

During the sentencing, Walkhem went on to tell the court he has changed following his arrest, explaining that his eventual goal is to seek counselling "to figure out why I made these terrible decisions."
But that didn't impress the judge either, with Gans telling him his new outlook on life "had a hollow ring to it," adding that perhaps he should have been doing that before he was arrested.

Under cross-examination from the prosecutor, Walkem admitted he was "reckless ... callous... only looking out for himself" when he had sex with the two women but never told them about his condition. "You knew every time you had unprotected sex you had done something very risky," Walken agreed with the prosecutor that he was having sex with the women while taking medication daily for his condition, and was also showing symptoms of the virus, such as enlarged and mobile nodes in his body and oral ulcers, a sure sign that he was HIV positive.

There is another person I wish to tell you about. I canot give you his name as it cannot be published in order to protect the identity of his 5-year-old victim who is in fact, his own daughter.

Last October, Superior Court Judge Bonnie Croll convicted the 47-year-old former labourer of sexual assault causing bodily harm and sexual interference for "despicable conduct" that may make his daughter infertile.

In 2002, the year he tested positive for AIDS, he was near death and had to be hospitalized for one and a half years.

Although the little girl was suffering from a painful urinary problem in July 2001, he didn't tell his wife he had gonorrhea, which delayed potential treatment.
Det.-Const. Ann-Marie Tupling charged the pedophile in 2002 after tests showed that his daughter had the same strain of gonorrhea as him. He claimed the girl might have contracted his venereal infection from sitting on the home's toilet seat, sharing towels, or in other ways. Yeah, sure. If you believe that explanation, I have a bridge I want to sell you. It’s in Brooklyn.

The prosecutor is asking for a sentence of ten years whereas his defence lawyer, Allan Lobel is asking for a two-year conditional sentence, likely house arrest, for his client.

The questions that the two judges in these two cases must ask themselves is; “Is a conditional sentence appropriate?

Between 2003 – 2005 three African men were convicted for knowingly transmitting HIV to their female sexual partners and these comprised the first of such convictions in England. All three were charged with committing Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH) in England. These cases were brought under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861.

Mohammed Dica was convicted on 14 October 2003 of “unlawfully and maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm” on two women by infecting them with HIV. He was sentenced to a total of eight years imprisonment.

In May 2004, Feston Konzani was sentenced to ten years for infecting three women with HIV.

In May 2005,Paulo Matias pleaded guilty to the charge of reckless grievous bodily harm for infecting one woman with HIV and was sentenced to three and a half years in jail. He died in January 2006 from complications caused by HIV.

In my respectful opinion, I believe that people who have unprotected sex with sexual partners while they are HIV positive and choose not to disclose this information to their partners, are not worthy of sympathy or mercy whatsoever. The public has a right to be protected from these people and since they choose to infect their victims with reckless disregard for their health and wellbeing, they deserve to be imprisoned for a very long time.

Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – November 11, 1938), also known as Typhoid Mary, was the first person in the United States to be identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever. Over the course of her career as a cook, she infected 47 people, three of whom died. Her fame is in part due to her vehement denial of her own role in causing the disease, together with her refusal to cease working as a cook after being formed that she was carrying the disease. She was forcibly quarantined twice by public health authorities, and died in quarantine.

Mary Mallon seemed a healthy woman when a health inspector knocked on her door in 1907, yet she was the cause of several typhoid outbreaks. Since Mary was the first "healthy carrier" of typhoid fever in the United States, she did not understand how someone not sick could spread disease. You will note that Vincent

Walkem came up with a similar excuse by claiming that he though his disease was manageable.

If the public had shown Mary Mallon some sympathy during her first period of confinement because she was an unwitting typhoid carrier, all of the sympathy disappeared after her recapture. This time, Typhoid Mary knew of her healthy carrier status - even it she didn't believe it; thus she willingly and knowingly caused pain and death to her victims. Using a pseudonym made even more people feel that Mallon knew she was guilty.

Mallon was again sent to North Brother Island to live in the same isolated cottage that she had inhabited during her last confinement. For twenty-three more years, Mary Mallon remained imprisoned on the island. In December 1932, Mary Mallon suffered a large stroke that left her paralyzed. She was then transferred from her cottage to a bed in the children's ward of the hospital on the island, where she stayed until her death six years later, on November 11, 1938.

In Canada, roughly 58,000 people are HIV-positive. According to the Canadian Public Health Agency, 16,000, or 26 per cent, don't even know they carry the virus. Dr. Kelly MacDonald, director of the HIV research program at the University of Toronto, said a significant proportion of new infections result from people not knowing their "exposure status."

Obviously, if they don’t know that they carry the virus within them, then they shouldn’t be charged with any crime if they inadvertently infect a sexual partner while having unprotected sex.

In criminal law, individuals are held responsible through penal sanctions for their actions that have been deemed to be unlawful. The emphasis is on individual responsibility for his/her deeds and the establishing of the moral culpability that underlies the claim for criminal,culpability. For effective and convincing HIV/AIDS programming, it must be stressed thatfor all people there exists and remains a responsibility toward themselves and towards others to possibly minimize the risk of further transmission.

Criminal liability for recklessness should only be imposed, whether for transmission or exposure, in the event that the defendant actually knew (or believed) that he or she is infected with HIV or another STI.8 (Sexually Transmitted Infection)

There could be specific situations in which a sexually active young person has not et been made aware of his or her HIV infection by parents or guardians. In such cases, evidently the young person himself or herself could not be held criminally liable for transmission or exposure because of the lack of requisite personal knowledge.

The principle of lex certa requires that, before imposing punishment, the law must clearly delineate which conduct is prohibited;

One argument against criminalizing recklessness is that it exacerbates the disincentive to HIV testing: “A person who does not know his HIV positive status cannot, legally, be reckless because he cannot, logically, be aware of the risk of transmitting HIV to his partners(s).”

The criminal law should not punish those persons who, even if they do not disclose their HIV/STI-positive status to a sexual partner, nonetheless act responsibly and in accord with standard public health advice by taking precautions to reduce the risk of transmission. Practicing safer sex, including the use of a condom for penetrative anal or vaginal sex,11 or engaging only in activities that carry a similarly low or even lowerrisk, should preclude a finding of recklessness on the part of the defendant.

In some cases, prosecutors and courts have recognised that criminalization in such circumstances is unwarranted. In a Canadian case, ( R. v. Edwards Nova Scotia Supreme Court ) the prosecution acknowledged that unprotected oral sex is conduct that carries only a low risk of HIV transmission and would not be the basis for a prosecution.

Does a general agreement to engage in sex, particularly unprotected sex, with all the attendant risks, suffice? Or, in order to be legally valid and preclude a criminal charge for transmission or exposure, must a person’s consent to sex, particularly if unprotected, be specifically informed by the knowledge that his or her partner has HIV or another STI..

There is widespread awareness that unprotected sex carries a risk of a range of consequences, from HIV to other STIs to pregnancy in some cases. It would be however unwarranted to criminalize the individual who transmits HIV where those who have been infected are, despite non-disclosure, well aware of the potential harm to which they may be subjecting themselves by agreeing to have sex with a person they know or believe carries the risk of transmission. However, I strongly doubt that any person would willingly have unprotected sex with a sexual partner whom they know or even suspect is HIV positive so the reasoning that the carrier shouldn’t be punished becomes rathert academic.

There is a distinction between active deceit about one’s HIV/STI-positive status and simple non-disclosure. Active deceit undermines the autonomy of the sexual partner who seeks to act, albeit imperfectly, to minimize his or her risk by basing his or her conduct on the information about the person’s HIV status that has been (untruthfully) provided. This would, therefore, be conduct that could legitimately attract criminal penalty.

It is critical that a putative defendant’s individual circumstances, such as age and understanding of the nature of infection and of risk, be taken into account when deciding whether to prosecute. It is not in the public interest to prosecute those HIV positive people who are young, mentally ill, vulnerable (for social, cultural or other reasons), or totally ignorant of the effects of the disease on the human body.

The law that HIV/STI transmission or exposure may only constitute a criminal offence in the absence of consent on the part of the complainant – that is, the absence of consent is a requisite element of the offence. Consequently, the onus is on the prosecution to prove the absence of consent on the part of the complainant; the burden of proving consent does not lie on the defendant. There needs to be a clear understanding of this important point on the part of police, prosecutors, the defence bar, and the courts.

The Supreme Court of the Netherlands has ruled, in a case involving unprotected anal and oral sex, that there was not a “substantial” risk of transmission, and therefore a prosecution for recklessness could not succeed. If that is so, then why are so many homosexual victims of this disease dying from AIDS?

It is interesting to note that merely having oral sex with an infected partner doesn’t necessarily mean that the disease will be successfully transmitted. It may very well be transmitted but once the virus enters the stomach, the hydrochloric acid, the strongest acid known to Man will kill off the virus so in effect, the tansmission into the body will not be successful.

In a criminal prosecution involving unprotected oral sex and protected vaginal sex, a New Zealand court observed that the risk of HIV transmission through oral intercourse without a condom “is so low it does not register as a risk” Since the legal duty “is not to take failsafe precautions”, but to use “reasonable”precautions and care, the court was satisfied that the defendant did take reasonable precautions and care, and acquitted him of the charge of criminal nuisance.

There is evidence that, following diagnosis, a significant proportion of people living with HIV do act in ways to reduce the risk of transmission to sexual partners. One factor strongly associated with such behaviour change is having received good-quality voluntary counselling and testing; hence the importance of ensuring access to such services, and to other support services that can assist in addressing underlying factors that may contribute to risk behaviours.

Of course, many carriers of the disease may not want to tell their doctors that they suspect that they are HIV positive because once they are tested and discovered to be carrying the disease, the doctor will warn his patient that his patient is not to have unprotected sexual relations with his sexual partner.

Having been warned, the carrier is then faced with the problem of having unprotected sex knowing that if found out, he will risk imprisonment.

Making HIV testing a routine part of any doctor's visit is at the heart of a debate in Canada's medical community, which is desperate to reduce the number of people who are infected with the virus but don't know that they are carrying it in their bodies.

With "universal testing" patients would have to opt out of being screened for HIV during a physical or regular blood work. Taking a detailed sexual history, doing a risk assessment and conducting pre and post-test counseling would no longer be mandatory.

The debate hinges on a single point. "It becomes an issue of weighing people's rights to privacy versus their rights and obligations to society. You can have your privacy and have HIV and die from it and if you do, your privacy killed you because you didn’t seek treatment.

The issue of whether to implement universal testing in this country was a hot topic in September when U.S. health authorities recommended all Americans between 13 and 64 be tested when they go for a check up.

It was brought back into the spotlight this week after Toronto physician Brian Cornelson called for such widespread testing during the sentencing hearing of Vincent Walkem.

Current practice for HIV screening in Ontario involves taking a detailed risk assessment and sexual history from the patient, getting verbal consent and conducting pre- and post-test counselling. It is also problematic in that patients have to initiate the process by requesting the test.

It is conceiveable that people don't ask to be tested often enough thinking they aren't at risk. They may not disclose important details of their sexual history. Some don't seek testing believing, in error, blood work they've had in the past would reveal if in fact they carry the virus.

Since a positive result is no longer tantamount to a death sentence, testing speeds up treatment and reduces transmission of the virus to others. Making HIV testing as common as screening is for high cholesterol, will help reduce the stigma attached to AIDS. There shouldn’t be any real concern about their problem being publially disclosed as they can be tested anonymously at a clinic whereas their family physicians are required to report positive results and infected individuals to the Canadian Public Health Agency.

People carrying the disease shouldn’t necessarily be ashamed because this disease can be transmitted to them by a loved one who doesn’t know that he or she is HIV positive. Not all carriers are homosexuals or frequent prostitutes; two groups of people more prone to carrying this disease than the average citizen.
The World Health Organization (WHO) have stated that Policies governing police conduct should prohibit the release of information about a person suspected or accused of HIV/STI transmission or exposure, either to the media that is aimed at soliciting additional complaints unless that person is convicted. Such solicitation is particularly inappropriate when a complaint that has been received does not itself provide reasonable grounds to believe any offence has been committed.

It goes on to say that policies governing police and prosecutors must clearly prohibit police officers or prosecuting authorities from making public comments about the defendant that are intended, or can reasonably be foreseen, to prejudice the right to a fair trial. This includes statements that: misstate known facts regarding HIV/STI transmission or disease; exaggerate or misrepresent the evidence known to police and prosecutors; exaggerate or misrepresent an offence with which the defendant has been charged; or appeal to or provoke racist, sexist, homophobic or other stereotypes or prejudices in relation to either the defendant or the complainant. Policies governing police should also prohibit any member of the investigating police force from publicly calling for prosecutors to proceed with a prosecution in a particular case, and should prohibit police officers from commenting publicly on a case once the decision has been made by prosecuting authorities to proceed with the matter before the courts. The police should have clear policies and protocols ensuring that the conduct of legal proceedings is not tainted by publishing misinformation about HIV/AIDS and bias towards defendants who have HIV/AIDS, so as not to prejudice the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

Victims who have been infected with HIV/AIDS who are testifying in court are pretty well guaranteed that their identity and privacy will be protected in legal proceedings in which information on these matters will be raised. The government should ensure that laws and policies governing the conduct of legal proceedings include provisions for courts to protect the privacy of the accused by ordering the use of a pseudonym for proceedings, sealing the court record of proceedings, permitting proceedings in camera, imposing a publication ban on details that would identify the accused, and imposing prohibitions on court personnel from disclosing information ordered to be kept confidential.

Dahn Batchelor's Opinions

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Dahn Batchelor's Opinions

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DO WE HAVE TO ADJUST OUR LIVES TO ALIEN DEMANDS?

I believe that it is advantageous for all Canadians and citizens of other countries to accept immigrants to our countries. The immigrants bring their culture with them that adds to the mosaic of our countries.

But I get quite annoyed when I read about demands that many immigrants and other minorities make on those of us who have lived here all our lives and who insist that we adjust ourselves to their demands.

Here is a case in point. In November 2006, in the city of Montreal, a Hasidic school (a very orthodox Jewish school) made demands upon a local YMCA which was next door to them, that the Y frost four of their windows so that young men in the Y would not stare at the young women who were exercising in the school. Finally, the Hasdic school gave the Y money to pay for the frosting of their windows.

It is beyond me as to why the Y succumbed to this kind of abuse from a neighbour. It’s like your neighbor telling you that you have to frost your bedroom window so won’t see your neighbour’s wife when she is undressing in their bedroom. If I were being abused like that, I would tell the jerk to get some blinds.

In 2001, some Hasidic Jews in Montreal strung up fishing line along utility poles so that they could create an extended eruv. (an area where they may carry on activities which otherwise would be prohibited on Saturdays)

I don’t care whether they choose to carry on activities normally prohibited to them on Saturdays but if they wish to do that, they should restrict those areas to their homes or any other place that is theirs and not do so in the public domain. It’s like your cat peeing on your neighbour’s lawn as a gesture to your neighbours that your cat has enlarged its territorial domain beyond your own property.

Some ultra-Orthodox Jews in Montreal recently made demands on the police force in that city that only male officers should interview
female suspects or witnesses of that sect because the male ultra-Orthodox Jews may not want to talk with the female officers.

Pure unadulterated RUBBISH

These people aren’t the only ones who make foolish demands. When Baltej Singh Dhillon was accepted into the RCMP, he faced a choice — serving his country or wearing his turban. He chose to fight for his religious rights. In 1990, the federal government finally removed the ban preventing Sikhs in the RCMP from wearing turbans.

How long will it be before Sikhs while working in our mines, on construction sites or serve in our armed forces begin making the same demands? The problem as I see it is, if Sikhs can wear turbans while serving with the RCMP, how long will it be before another minority citizen insists that he wear a headdress of his own choosing while serving in a police force?

A number of years ago, a Moslem schoolgirl in the United States demanded that her school not play Christmas carols in her school. She said that she was not a Christian and that the carols offended her.

More utter unadulterated GARBAGE

Probably the worst offender of this kind of nonsense is the Quebec government. They made a law that prohibits store owners from printing English words on their signs. They also passed a law that said that instruction in the kindergarten classes and in the elementary and secondary schools shall be in French only. That would mean that all the thousands of English speaking students would not be taught English at all, a language that is universally excepted all over the world.

The Supreme Court of Canada denounced that law by saying that it was inconsistent with s. 23 of the Charter and was of no force or effect.

Section 23 of the Charter is entitled Minority Language Educational Rights and provides the citizens of Canada, whose first language learned and understood is that of the English or French linguistic minority population of the province they reside in.

I do not concern myself about accepting a world of differing cultures and languages. It’s the world we live in. I do however have concerns about immigrants and religious zealots who would throw their cultures, beliefs and languages in our faces and then treat us as if it is we who are the aliens who must succumb to their demands.

Is this member of the Canadian parliament a coward?

On September 13, 2006, I sent a letter to Jack Layton, the leader of the NDP in Canada when I read that he wanted Canadian troops withdrawn from Afghanistan.
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Dear Mr. Layton:

You made an impressive statement with respect to the terrible event that took place five years ago when terrorists attacked the United States on September 11th , 2001. I quote you in part;

“On September 11th, 2001, an immense tragedy struck the United States, and the whole world felt its impact. The scourge of terrorism continues today and bringing it to an end must be a part of our international and cooperative efforts. We cannot let that act of terror, that day of great loss, cloud our vision of ourselves, our country or our world and we must move forward. At this time of mass grief and commemoration of so many lives brutally cut short, let us move forward with dialogue and development and let us rebuild the international community's consensus to help bring closure to this tragedy.” unquote

Bringing closure to this tragedy is exactly what Prime Minister Harper is attempting to do by keeping our Canadian troops in Afghanistan. His government acted with the United Nations when the mission to Afghanistan was launched in October 2001. It is a noble cause.

Already you have forgotten about the human rights abuses in that country before the NATO forces went in and rescued that country from the Taliban abuses heaped upon the women and girls of that country. As a result of NATO's 35-nation military campaign in Afghanistan, Afghans have held elections for a president and parliament, girls go to school, women are permitted to work for a living and run for office and women are not publicly whipped in a stadium that the international community built for them.

In your speech, you said, “…..let us move forward with dialogue….” When asked about the NDP's position, The American Secretary of State Rice vehemently disagreed when she said, "You can't negotiate with Taliban. C'mon, these are people who whipped women in stadiums given to them by the international community. The Taliban made Afghanistan a failed state and a terrorist haven for al-Qaida so that they could launch the Sept. 11 attacks. What's to negotiate?" unquote

You weren’t around when Hitler was in power so you didn’t see British Prime Minister Chamberlain holding a peace of paper in his hand, and crying out, “Peace in our time.” after getting a written promise by Hitler that he would not encroach on the borders of his neighbours. When he invaded Poland, England declared war on Germany and soon after, so did Canada. Before the Allies could bring an end to that war, Hitler massacred almost six million Jews, many of them in Poland.

This raises an interesting rhetorical question. If you were a member of parliament in 1942 when the war in Europe wasn’t looking very good for the Allies, would you have stood up in Parliament and demanded that we withdraw our soldiers and return them to Canada?

The world stood by and did nothing when almost a million Rwandans were slaughtered on orders of the governing powers in that country. The Sudanese government has forbidden UN peacekeepers to enter the Darfur region of Sudan and so far, over 200,000 people have been slaughtered there. Despite these tragedies, I can find no public statements of condemnation made by you when those Rwandans were being slaughtered, nor can I find anything said by you re the plight of those victims in Darfur and now you condemn our prime minister for trying to bring stability to the lives of Afghans.

Despite progress in Afghanistan, a large area of that country is still in the hands of the Taliban and aside from the fact that women and girls under their control are still suffering from human rights abuses heaped upon them by the Taliban, 90 percent of the world’s poppies are grown in their sector of Afghanistan which increases the flow of heroin worldwide thereby providing most of the revenue which goes directly into the coffers of the Taliban.

Obviously the Americans have a vested interest in fighting the Taliban since most of the heroin created in Afganistan ends up in the veins of Americans. That is also the reason why the Americans invaded Panama and arrested, tried and convicted its leader as a drug trafficker.

Terrorism is a plague that has encompassed the world. Three times since 1975, I have addressed United Nations crime conferences (the latest in Bangkok in 2005) about the dangers of terrorism and I have consistently said that we must stamp it out like one stamps on bugs that are prone to infesting homes.

Thanks to the ruling Taliban—Muslim fundamentalists who imposed radical Islamic rule on the country—Afghanistan had become a base for terrorists, namely Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda training camps. Because Afghanistan was such a chaotic place, and because the Taliban were deeply influenced by bin Laden’s philosophy, the Taliban welcomed him and his network into the country. There they could plan their attacks with less fear of reprisal because other countries were wary of entering Afghanistan. Are we to believe that the Taliban have since renounced terrorism? Not likely. If the Taliban overtake all of Afghanistan again, it will be a cesspool of terrorists and we will all be back to square one again.

The battles are not won and although we have a bloody nose, we must persevere. Until the Taliban is eradicated and Afghans can live in peace and enjoy equality for all, Canadian soldiers should continue to fight the Taliban and any other warlords who abuse the people of Afghanistan and encourage heroin trafficking and harbour terrorists.

When John W. Dafoe wrote a letter to George Ferguson in 1939 after Canada declared war on Germany, he said in part; “I thought the news would knock me out. Instead it was such a relief that the sword had at last come out of its scabbard in a good cause.” unquote

Canada has drawn its sword and is swinging it at the Talibans in Afghanistan. Your demands that Canada put it back in its scabbard before the fight is over are the words of a coward.

Letter to the prime minister of Thailand
written by Dahn Batchelor


Thailand's American-educated prime minister thought he could use capitalist tools and democratic elections to bask in a family sale netting 1.8 billion dollars, tax-free, amidst crushing demands that he resign. He resigned from office as a disgraced politician. The following letter was written by me to him a year before he resigned.

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Thaksin Shinawatra May 9, 2005
Prime Minister of Thailand
Government House
Phitsanuloc Road
Bangkok, 10300
Thailand


Dear Sir:


When I attended the 11th UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Criminal Justice held in Bangkok in April, I was one of the persons who accepted your government’s offer to visit two of your country’s prisons. I wanted to see if the allegations in the Internet that stated that your prison system is a disgrace, had any validity to them. What follows is a sample of what I recently found written in the Internet.


Klong Prem Central prison was originally a temporary prison established in 1944, and later changed to a vocational training centre. In 1960 the prison was so overcrowded that the Interior Ministry established a temporary new prison within the same compound by dividing one part into a vocational training centre and the other part into the Lard Yao central prison. In 1970, the Interior Ministry separated the two prisons and the Lard Yayo was upgraded to Klong Prem Central and the old prison was renamed the Bangkok Special Prison.


Built in 1930's Bang Kwang is a Maximum Security Prison which holds inmates who are serving more than 25 years. Bang Kwang also holds prisoners whose appeals are pending in the Appeal Court and the Surpreme Court and Death Sentence Prisoners waiting for execution.


Overcrowding is an understatement as 20 or more inmates sleep side by side in small concrete cells with a bare bulb shining all night long. An open shit hole in the corner which all the men use. Origionally built to hold a few thousand inmates, it now holds over 8000.


Food consists of one meal a day of red rice in a dirty looking broth devoid of vegetables or meat. If you are lucky there may be a fish head or some other object with the promise of nutrition. Some resort to eating cockroaches, which swarm all over the place.


Punishment is common in Bang Kwang, from a random (and regular) whack with a cane to the wearing of leg shackles (denied by the prison authorities even when photos of leg shackles on prisoners are shown in the Internet). Beatings are common and are dispensed by guards and prisoners alike. Those poor souls unlucky enough to be put in the hole (solitary confinement) can spend months at a time in complete darkeness.
The hospital isn’t much better and those unlucky enough to end up there are usually there to die. TB, HIV, Hepatitus, along with disentry, fungal diseases, scabies and a host of other tropical diseases are common and can spread through the prison like wildfire. If you do fall sick (which is extremely likley) you have to pay for the medicine yourself. Most of the poorer inmates simply die. The pictures in the Internet (that were shown on Thai TV) show the prison conditions even more graphically.


That part of your country’s prison system that we who attended the 11th Congress were shown was the vocational training centre. Naturally I was impressed as were the other conferees. But being shown the vocational centre of your prison in Bangkok was not unlike being shown a beautiful woman in a bikini. What we were shown was most interesting. However, it was what was unseen that really tantalized my curiosity.


In 1999, Amnesty International stated on the Internet and I quote;


Prison conditions often constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, characterized by prolonged shackling in heavy chains, prolonged solitary confinement, and beatings for routine infractions of prison rules. Overcrowding and medical neglect are also ongoing problems. As a result of the economic downturn, prison conditions appear to have deteriorated further, including more overcrowding and a cut in food rations.


In 2001, Amnesty International in a report stated;


Torture and ill-treatment in prisons after people are tried and sentenced for criminal offences also occur in some cell blocks of prisons, which are under the control of the Corrections Department. Beatings and kicks are generally the form of punishment given to inmates on suspicion of breaking prison regulations. ''Trusties'', who are selected by prison officials for special privileges, are often the agents of such practices. Reports of ''trusties'' (also known as ''blue shirts'') beating prisoners with impunity are common. Such treatment occurred frequently in Building 2 of Lard Yao Men's Prison, Nonthaburi Province, on the outskirts of Bangkok. According to informed sources, Building Chiefs in prisons have almost complete power and in practice are not held accountable to the Prison Governor. Some of them are reported to be conscientious, but others permit torture and ill-treatment of inmates by prison guards and ''trusties''. Some also reportedly collect bribes on a regular basis from the prisoners for privileges, including sleeping space in a cell.


Naturally, I am curious as to whether much has changed since then.
I appreciate the fact that prisoners are not to be coddled (especially drug traffickers and murderers ) and that the prison experience should act as a deterrent but I think that your country should look to countries like Canada where we treat our prisoners in a more humane manner irrespective of their crimes.


My wife and I attended your reception and we were impressed with your speech. I chose however not to meet with you because of my fear that I would feel compelled to tell you of my concerns about the treatment of your prisoners and I didn’t want to say anything to you at that time that would spoil your evening. Hence, I am writing you instead.


As a person trained in criminal justice (as I too have been) you perhaps more than anyone else in Thailand can appreciate the need for improvement in your prison system.


If the treatment of prisoners in a country can be read as the barometer of civilization in that country, then unfortunately Thailand, a nation which is reknown as the country of smiles, has a barometer reading that is extremely low.


It is my fervent wish that some day, your Bang Kwang prison in Bangkok will appear to all who are invited to visit your prison system, ( and not just the façade ) as a beautiful woman and not as a decrepit old hag.


I remain,


Respectfully yours


Dahn Batchelor C.Crim. C.Fam. PLL

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NOTE: He didn’t reply to my letter.