Thailand mulls early release, home confinement to stem prison outbreak

The government wants to release around 50,000 inmates in response to the alarming spread of COVID-19 through the prison population, where the count of cases has exceeded 10,000 and is likely much higher.

Justice Minister Somsak Thepsuthin said yesterday that as the corrections system makes a belated effort to come to terms with the scope of the problem – it began releasing piecemeal numbers only under public pressure – the Corrections Department is considering ways to reduce numbers at the famously overcrowded facilities. They include everything from transferring some inmates to home incarceration to be electronically monitored to granting pardons and early release.

There are currently 11,679 inmates being treated at hospitals, according to Somsak.

Thailand’s prisons have a COVID problem it doesn’t want to talk about

Somsak said he would seek vaccines for…