NCJ Number
72118
Date Published
1977
Length
83 pages
Annotation
This thesis describes the juvenile justice system in Thailand, compares it to that of the United States, and concludes that working differences between the two are negligib1e and due to American educational and institutional modernity.
Abstract
The Thai juvenile justice system is barely 20 years old, functional mainly in the densely populated provincial capitals and supplemented in rural parts of the country by an age-old system of committees. The committees are comprised of elders who frequently lack formal education and whose decisions may be made without reference to scientific, physiological, or psychological factors. The distinct lack of education among juvenile correctional officials, in addition to poor facilities, manpower, and funds, together with the recent rise in juvenile delinquency and the gradual dissolution of traditional family controls, has create an urgent need for improvements. By transposition, this thesis endeavors to present a viable program utilizing salient concepts from the American system and modifying them to the Thai perspective. The concepts explored for adaptat1on in Thailand include due process, the right to privacy, the right of being fully informed, and the removal of discrimination during referrals and placements. An historical perspective is used to identify the current weaknesses of juvenile justice in Thailand; conditions in America are used as a standard of comparison within a framework of broad key concepts of a model juvenile justice system. Basic concepts and the philosophy of juvenile justice in the two countries are found to be theoretically similar, despite discrepancies in approach and structure. For example, the rehabilitative model of juvenile corrections is expressed in Thailand though religious concepts that assume shortcomings in the 'moral character' of a delinquent for whom religious training is deemed necessary to achieve total rehabilitation. Among the recommendations for improved juvenile justice are the establishment of juvenile courts in all provinces, the education of juvenile court judges in the provinces, the education of juvenile court judges in the provinces, the involvement of support professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists, probation officers, social workers, manual arts teachers, etc.), the motivation of juvenile justice employees through enlightened personnel practices, the establishment of a diversion program, and the institution of social sciences faculties at the major universities for training juvenile justice practitioners. A bibliography of Thai (12 entries) and American (44 entries) literature is provided. Appendixes contain tabular data and descriptions of Thai courts of first instance.