The Last Executioner (18 page)

Some prisons in America started using lethal injection back in 1977. Bang Kwang wanted to move with the times. Our forward-thinking chief sent researchers over to America to study the process of injecting a criminal with chemicals. The lower house in the Thai Parliament then voted to bring in lethal injections by 288 to 260. The bill was then supported by the upper house and also received Royal approval. Generally the method was believed to less painful and cruel for the condemned and for the executioner. Death by lethal injection involves three steps. The first is the use of a general anaesthetic, such as sodium pentathol, to relax the prisoner. The second step is the ‘paralysing agent’, pancuronium bromide, and the third chemical stops the heart, like potassium chloride for instance. A new room was built for the injections, which are activated by three separate buttons to be worked by three separate prison guards, ensuring that one guy does not shoulder the guilt and responsibility.

Just recently I read about China, which executes something like 8,000 people a year. A lot of these executions are performed by firing squads in a public setting—something I would not liked to have done, shooting people in front of a crowd which would probably include the families of the condemned. Anyway, China wants to stop this and have come up with a mobile execution team. A four-man team now picks up a prisoner in a van and drives somewhere quiet to execute him by lethal injection. The Chinese authorities believe this method to be more humane and efficient, and more respectful to the prisoner, instead of making a spectacle out of his death. It is a strange idea.

***

You may find this strange, but when I finished executing prisoners, I decided to enter the priesthood. It was on the occasion of His Majesty’s 72nd birthday which made it even more special. I was 55 years old. Socially every Thai male is expected to become a monk at sometime in his life, just for a short period. Usually you would do so in between finishing school and starting a career and family. It used to be the case that you stayed in the temple for three months during the Buddhist lent season which starts in July alongside the wet season. Thankfully that has been shortened considerably. I didn’t experience much enlightenment after my stay of just 15 days. I participated in a mass ordination which included five other prison guards. The Municipal of Nonthaburi organised our entrance into monkhood. I was lucky to join with them since they had all done it before and could show a complete novice like myself the ropes. First I had to shave off my hair and eyebrows. Tew giggled when she saw me. She said it suited me but I’m not so sure.

The other guys had to help me dress the part by getting me into the robes. There are two. First I had to wear a white robe over my shirt and trousers for the initial entrance and then after the preliminary rituals I was presented with the bright orange robe rolled up in a plastic bag. This is the robe that is probably most familiar to tourists. It is a very beautiful garment and a bit complicated to get into. It also took some getting used to, wearing such a vibrant colour. We had to go out walking every morning carrying a large bowl for the offerings that would be presented to us by the public. Thankfully I could wear sandals. The monks used to go out bare foot but then when the roads became dirtier and even treacherous with broken beer bottles etc., they were allowed to put on sandals.

It’s not easy being a priest. We had to be up by 4am and showered by 5am every morning. I was glad to return home and catch up on my sleep. When I look at the photos now of me in the orange robe I think I look a bit too self-conscious. I didn’t feel truly comfortable as a monk either in the temple or outside on the street but I was glad to do it. It was my way of making merit for my life to date, including being an executioner. I spent the time reading the scriptures and meditating—it was like taking a break to catch my breath from the day to day stressful business of living.

Chapter 15

Things are still changing at Bang Kwang. The Department of Corrections is trying to improve its image. Now we only recruit highly-educated staff, people with Bachelor or Masters Degrees. Back when I applied you could be accepted despite not finishing secondary school. The hope is to bring the job of prison guard in line with other civil service careers. The examination and the interview are a lot tougher now than they were. Guards like me are constantly being approached by the rookies who wish to improve their career prospects by writing up projects and proposals for improvements in the prison system. They value our college-free expertise and advice. Old timers like me are becoming fewer and fewer. Yet the rookies can be easily influenced and regularly messed up. Even senior administrative officers are being investigated about corrupt practices—money laundering and supplying drugs.

Working here is a risky business and college degrees are not going to help much if an individual lacks common sense and basic morals. There is too much money involved; money from the prison shop and government money that is allocated to us for improving and extending facilities like the vocational training program. There are plenty of opportunities to be corrupt.

The money from the prison shop is used to buy medicine, and fund events like press receptions when we are trying to get a new program off the ground. There is plenty of money for all of that, but there is precious little for actually feeding the prisoners. Our budget to feed the men remains at 27 baht a day per prisoner. The DOC wants to fix all that now, plus we are working more with international organisations. It is difficult to supply the minimum acceptable standards with such a small budget. I cannot say that the situation has been greatly improved, no matter how highly educated the staff are, or how fancy their surname is.

In the midst of all this change the little things are forgotten about. I know this is not just particular to Bang Kwang; anyone who has worked at the same job will relate to this. The old guy who has worked hard for years is almost invisible now. These older guys, and I include myself here, were more hands on and got the job done quietly, without fuss. The old guy started his day with a coffee and a smoke at 6am. Then he would have a walk about before unlocking the building. He would ferret out any mishaps from the previous night—who beat up who, who was raped by whom. He always made it his business to know what exactly was going on with the inmates.

He also cared about the little things, like making sure that the inmates got served equal amounts of food. He would watch the inmate who was in charge of dishing out the soup, telling him not to stir it because the meat would be scattered and settle at the bottom of the pot, enabling the convict to dig deep for his mates and skim the meatless surface for everyone else. The server would be instructed to put the fish into the small bowls first and pour the soup over it so that everyone got a bit of meat. The new guys don’t concern themselves with any of these voluntary niceties, they don’t see the point of them since they haven’t been asked by their superiors to carry them out, therefore they won’t get any points for it and they won’t be paid any extra.

I really don’t understand why the DOC hires so many graduates; surely there can’t be that many jobs to suit their desired profession. Say we need one good solicitor and we end up taking on ten. That means that nine of them just do errands until they get bored and leave for a better job. The prison is just used as experience to put on a
Curriculum Vitae
and if someone knows that they are not going to be around for a long time then they are reluctant to care about the job. The wages badly need to be improved. A prison officer with a college degree only makes a paltry 7,000 baht a month, which is nothing compared to his counterpart in the business world. The wages are no incentive either to stay or stay away from making dirty money. There would be more pride in the profession if the money was better. The DOC must be careful that all these changes are not purely superficial. The college graduates love proposing new projects. We have boxing tournaments, music competitions and activities galore. But what about the welfare of the prisoners—are they hungry? Are they sick? Is anyone being bullied?

Also I have come to believe that you have to respect the criminals and be a little bit curious about how they arrived in Bang Kwang. It makes the job more bearable and adds to my job satisfaction. If you respect the criminal as an equal human being it pushes you to do your best for him and motivates you to make improvements. Some of the young rookies see the inmates either as guinea pigs for their projects or as errant children. As I have mentioned before, I started to check out their files when they came to the prison and I made it my business to attend a seminar on criminality by the National Council of Thailand. Admittedly, it took me a while to become interested in the criminal as an individual but I’m glad I did. It provided me with a bigger picture and the knowledge that everything is not black and white. When you become a parent you learn it is best to keep an open mind. I think that is why my father was so well-liked—he was always open to new ideas and he was a great believer in the grey areas in life. This is what I have tried to bring to my role in Bang Kwang.

But I also have to repeat what I said earlier. I do believe that some people are innately bad and letting them work in a prison workshop or milk the prison cows is not going to change a serial offender into a good person.

Maintaining self control is a very important social matter in Thailand but it is not always possible. Tourists might find out the hard way that it does not help to lose your temper in public. Thais view a loss of temper to be akin to losing face if you have to resort to shouting and abuse. You are only letting yourself down and making yourself appear inferior. If someone angers you on the street or you feel hard done by you should keep your voice low and smile. This is much more effective behaviour. I could have easily ended up in Bang Kwang myself. When I was younger I was badly beaten up once and I can tell you now that if I had been carrying a gun on me that day I would have been charged for murder or, at the very least, grievous body harm. I was enraged that a gang of men should beat me up for no reason and I was filled with anger and a murderous desire for vengeance. So if it can happen to me it can happen to anyone.

This new breed of prison staff remains oblivious to all that. They sit in their offices hiding behind paperwork and dream up new projects that will enhance their reputations. They send in their projects and continue to sit in their offices waiting to see if they will get a raise for their academic efforts. Meanwhile I have befriended the inmate who cleans my office in the mornings. He fills me in on all the goings-on in the wings. If someone has been beaten up, I ask to see the head of the cell where the beating took place. I ask him what happened and after further investigation on my part I transfer the victim to another cell if I don’t think he is going to be left in peace. This is how I have always operated.

Now, I don’t really have anything against these projects. They help the prison, which can only be a positive thing. My problem is that when one guy starts doing a project and receives praise for it, then the others follow suit and there is no actual prison officer work being done. The new guys decide that a sport exhibition should be put in place. They hand out surveys and questionnaires and work out their statistics and percentages. The older warden worries about whether one prisoner will use the dumbbells to knock out a guy he doesn’t like, or the guy who has flirted with his ‘ladyboy’, or even a guard he has had a run-in with. He wonders where the prisoners are going to have their work out in relation to what the other prisoners are doing. Where is the equipment going to be left? Who is going to mind the key? The older guys have a lot more questions while the newer guys just present answers to questions that haven’t been asked.

Everything changes and I shouldn’t really be complaining. The world is changing. During one riot the inmates flew a kite to ask for Royal Amnesty. Today they use mobile phones.

***

People ask me if I believe in the prison system, do I believe that Bang Kwang can receive a hardened criminal and make him a better person to send back to live in normal society? I would have to be honest and say that I’m not sure that Bang Kwang has ever, or could ever, achieve that. There is a man from the Middle East who comes here looking to counsel the prisoners in the hope that he will make a few converts. In fact the prison receives quite a few religious teachers. They probably have the best of intentions and take the time to ask the prisoners what it is they are really looking for; how do they think faith could be introduced into their lives to help them. I maintain that all an inmate ever wants is his freedom; he’s not too hung up about improving his health or mind, he just wants to go home.

In my opinion there are three kinds of prisoners. The first kind is the ‘born-to-be’ criminal. He is like a lotus that lives under water and shies away from the light. I remember having a conversation with a serial rapist. He talked about not having the patience to befriend a woman and make the effort to get to know her over a few months before she lets him into her bed. He preferred the short cut. This is not easy talk to listen to, especially as a father and husband. I tried to explain that waiting and working towards something would lead to a more enduring satisfaction, one that lasted longer than three minutes, and would leave him feeling like he had really accomplished something. But I couldn’t be sure that he really understood what I was saying.

The second kind is the easily influenced criminal who finds himself in trouble thanks to his brother or his gang; he just went with the flow without aim or ambition.

The third kind is the mentally challenged criminal. He ends up in jail through a lack of intelligence or abnormal social skills. The first and the third criminal have, more than likely, had a crap childhood riddled with neglect or abuse—sexual or violent. They all end up here, after damaging someone else, needing to be rehabilitated and healed. We are not very optimistic regarding their leaving Bang Kwang as completely different people.

It is too heavy a responsibility to place that huge burden on the Department of Corrections alone; society at large also has to change its attitude. What is the point of bringing a prisoner into the workshop here and providing him with a skill? Maybe we can train an inmate to be a great carpenter or a cook but then he gets released into the outside world with his new found skill and when he turns up for a job interview with a prison record nobody wants to take a chance and hire him. So he ends up broke and completely vulnerable to resuming whatever it was he was doing that got him thrown into Bang Kwang in the first place. The politicians don’t seem too interested in the problems of the DOC, which is a pity because we should all be working together. The DOC is like the child of a mistress; no one wants to support us or give us a bigger budget.

We do our best here in the prison. The prisoners have access to sport, a choir, religion as well as the vocational training. We also have a prison house band, made up of inmates, and even our very own DJ, who used to work for a Thai country music radio station before being charged with drug offences. He runs a radio station from the auditorium which the band sometimes plays in. We used to hold quite a few concerts in the auditorium; I even played there a couple of times over the years. Unfortunately we have mostly stopped inviting musicians to the prison after the 1985 riot. The best concert I ever saw in Bang Kwang was actually a comedy show that was put on by the famous Thai comedienne Noi Po-ngam. She and her friends just cracked me up. Nowadays a show might be put on for a special occasion but that’s about it.

We have to function according to the standards and requirements set by the humanitarian organisations that Bang Kwang has joined. Overall the life of a prisoner has improved a lot since I started working as a prison guard. If a prisoner feels that he is being treated badly by a guard he is free to lodge a complaint against that guard. This was completely unheard of in the olden days. Things are better for the prisoner but this means extra work for the officer. Even the language has changed; we should call them inmates and not prisoners, while we are officers and not prison guards. As if that makes a difference!

***

Whether Bang Kwang has the ability to furnish a man with morals, if his parents and teachers have failed him, is open to debate. At the end of the day I believe that every human has his own value and I think I can honestly say that I have never looked down on any inmate. I don’t believe in kicking a man when he’s down, but on the other hand I’m not ready to believe that we can make them into better people. All we can do is send them back into society after they have completed their sentence and hope that they won’t commit the same crime again. They are lucky to receive a second opportunity. Yes we should think positively, but we don’t want to be accused of naivety either.

For my part in the prison system all I can do is control them and prevent them from escaping, and ensure they are equipped with the essentials for living here. The inmates want officers to understand how bad their position is, and we do understand, more so than anyone else on the planet. If I think a prisoner isn’t a truly bad person I would befriend him but not completely trust him. I have to be realistic. I might find he has a common interest in music. Prisoners are always surprised to see me playing the guitar or hear me talk about Elvis or the music scene in the 1970s. Equally if an inmate is upset because his wife hasn’t visited him in a long time I would fetch him pen and paper so that he could write to her. If I had any stamps in my wallet I would take his letter and post it for him on my way home. I wouldn’t contact the family directly which, as I have said before, is a violation of prison rules. If you want to try and improve someone you must win him over first.

***

I am now the head of the Foreign Affairs Section in the prison and have been for the last six years. There are around 10,000 foreign criminals in Thailand now, so you can appreciate the necessity of this section. One of my biggest responsibilities is to organise the visits for the foreign relatives who fly in to see their loved one. There are constantly mountains of complaints from these prisoners requiring my attention. There are literally thousands of letters that have to be inspected and filed away and they are in a variety of languages; English, Chinese, French and Hindi, and it can be quite difficult staying on top of it. It used to be a much slower process, in that each letter from a foreign convict had to be first sent to the Department of Corrections where it might lie about for months before it was sent back to us. Thankfully we don’t have to do that anymore. But still the letters do mount up. Some embassies, like Israel, kindly help us by confirming what the letters sent by their convicts are about.