In August 1971 over half the inmates at New York’s Attica State Prison took control of the correction facilities in response to a prisoner being subjected to torture in his cell. 33 officers held hostage by the rioters and state officials agreed to most of the demands, however Governor Rockefeller refused to grant amnesty and the removal of the prison warden. State police assaulted the cellblocks with a hail of bullets killing ten hostages and twenty-nine inmates. The main complaints from the prisoners was overcrowding and this problem affects prison everywhere and last week Thai prisoners at the Trang Prison seized control of their dormitories to protest all manners of abuse such as lack of medical treatment, scarcity of clean drinking water, restrictions of mail and contract with families as well as vicious mistreatment of prisoners.

The warden retook the prison with attack squads of over 300 wardens, police and volunteers. Riot leaders were sent to other correctional institutions throughout the nation, where conditions are equally grim. The police played down the validity of the complaints by declaring that the ringleaders were drug dealers and that in the future drug traffickers will be exiled to Thailand’s Khao Bin max-security prison.

Over 70% of Thai prisoners are convicted on drug charges.

In the past three years the population has increased from 180,000 to 250,000 in a penal system built to hold a little over a 100,000.

I have had Thai friends sentenced to prison and they emerged from their incarceration broken men and women.

They were guilty of a crime, but deserving of such a punishment.

Only one word comes to mind.

ATTICA