Outline of the Existing Juvenile Justice System in Thailand (From UNAFEI Annual Report for 1985 and Material Produced During the 70th International Training Course, P 155-168, 1986 -- See NCJ-106514)

• NCJ Number: 106522
• Author(s): T Winitnaiyapak
• Date Published: 1986
• Length: 14 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United Nations
• Note: For microfiche, see NCJ-106514.

Annotation

Thailand's juvenile laws provide for separate juvenile courts that operate under the principle of parens patriae, but lack of money and expertise have meant that only 6 of the nation's 73 provinces have juvenile courts.

Abstract

In the other provinces, youthful offenders are processed by means of the normal criminal procedure of the ordinary provincial courts. To address the problem of fiscal limits, the law provides that juvenile sections are to be set up in the provincial courts of jurisdictions lacking separate juvenile courts. The age of criminal responsibility in Thailand is 7. However, youths aged 7 to 14 are given lenient dispositions, as are those aged 15 to 17 for whom a lenient approach is deemed appropriate. Many of the criminal justice personnel who process juvenile cases have no special training about the needs of youths or ways to deal with them. Juvenile proceedings are required to take place in closed sessions with limited numbers of people present. Both institutional and noninstitutional dispositions are used. Probation is being increasingly used, although more probation officers are needed. Data tables.