BANGKOK, Thailand - Inmates at a Thai prison responded so positively to a
routine of vegetarian meals and morning meditation that authorities plan to
expand a trial program nationwide, officials said Monday.
The inmates - 50 men and 50 women serving time for drug offenses at a
prison in provincial Thailand - participated in a program in which they
practiced meditation at 4.30 a.m., ate vegetarian meals and listened to
tapes of chanting by an Indian guru.
"We found that it changed the behavior of the prisoners, it made them aware
of right and wrong," said Surang Ekkachote of Thailand's Office of
Correctional Inspectors. The Corrections Department plans to expand the
program to prisons in other regions, she said.
Ten-day courses were taught to the inmates by followers of Indian guru S.
N. Goenka. They claim his method of Vipassana meditation - an ancient
Indian technique - has been successfully taught to prisoners and staff in
the United States, Britain, New Zealand, Taiwan and Nepal.
The trial program at the Klong Pai Prison in Nakorn Ratchasima province,
about 210 kilometers (130 miles) northeast of Bangkok, proved so popular
that most participants continued their daily meditation after completing
the course, Surang said.
She said she was inspired to allow the program after watching a videotape
of inmates meditating at an Indian prison. "The program began with people
convicted in drug-related cases but we plan to expand it to all kinds of
prisoners in the future," Surang said.
Of the 250,000 inmates in the country's 132 prisons, over 85 percent are
drug offenders, according to Corrections Department statistics.
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Thai prison uses vegetarian diet, meditation to reform drug offenders (8/5/2002)