No money for underwearBHANRAVEE TANSUBHAPOL
Budget shortfalls at prisons nationwide have forced some female prisoners to go without underwear, said a senior corrections official yesterday.
Ung-kanung Lepnak, director of Central Women Correctional Institution, said each inmate, male or female, normally receives two pieces of underwear a year. Women receive an additional 10 sanitary napkins, but no brassieres are provided.
``Normally women inmates prepare their personal items before they arrive at prison and their relatives buy bras and panties for them when needed,'' she said.
But relatives often stop visiting, and stop bringing supplies, after inmates have been in jail longer than five years.
The Corrections Department along with Channel 3 television and the Mall Group yesterday launched a truck caravan to distribute bras and panties to women inmates around the country. The campaign has received thousands of bras and panties, as well as other consumer products, worth 100,000 baht in the past several months. ``Prisoners, especially in the Northeast, who have no relatives or have been in jail for more than five years will be the first to get the items,'' said Ms Ung-kanung.
Currently, there are more than 29,000 women prisoners in jails nationwide, including 300 foreigners in the Central Women Correctional Institution. There are about 74,000 donated bras and pairs of panties, 60% which are new, so the inmates will receive about two items each.
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