by Sudjit Janenoppakanjana

Thailand, like many countries in the world, also faces the problem of juvenile institutional overcrowding in recent years. The overcrowding may have difference meaning to the developed countries and developing countries. The developed countries use criteria as minimum floor space cubic content of air ventilation and other basic amenities to measure overcrowding. However it means more than just shortage of accommodation for inmate it also develops unhealthy criminate effecting juvenile and rehabilitation programmes as well as creates other problems.

The problem of juvenile institutional overcrowding could be examined from two angles; overcrowding of untried juvenile during trial and overcrowding of trainees after adjudication.

Overcrowding causes numerous adverse effect especially it has related and effected chain reaction to juvenile offenders, administration and staff. To solve this problems it is widely acknowledged that all components within the juvenile criminal justice administration has a vital part to play in an integrated approach to formulate countermeasures in alleviating pressure exerted to the over-populated, by using non-custodial measures and non-institutional treatment measures. Those measures are contained in the concerned UN Standard Minimum Rules. Being applied of custodial measures and non-institutional treatment in Thailand, it found that have not had an affective impact on incarcerated rate with many reasons such as criticism against lenient punishment by police, public and etc. In consequently, these sectors be better informed of the importance and advantage of non-custodial sentence.

In order to get the successful treatment and rehabilitation of juvenile offenders in community , citizen��s positive regards to and involvement in programmes are indispensable factors. Thus, Thailand has been officially organized and mobilized for volunteer Probation Officer and Para-probation Officer to assist probation officer in helping rehabilitation of probationers. Moreover, voluntary organization, local institutions and other community resources have been called upon on contribute effectively to the rehabilitation juvenile in a community setting as much as possible, within the family unit.