Using prisoners to fulfil much-needed service delivery gaps in the export sector has echoes of America’s chain-gang era when bad boys in pyjama suits were used to till the land with pickaxes and shovels.
But Thailand’s ingenuity to solve labour shortages in the fresh produce market is more a case of prisoner light than heavy hoodlum, and seems to be bearing fruit.
Orasa Fruit Company was battling with demand because of worker shortages in the agricultural sector until the Tang Benja Correctional Institution in Combang sub-district stepped in.
Thirty first-time offenders serving sentences of three years or less, and with fewer than six months to go, were handpicked to throw their weight at the fresh fruit plant in Chantaburi Province, south-east of Bangkok.
The well-behaved baddies apparently made a significant impact to the plant’s output, rebalancing projected balance-sheet shortfalls stemming from Orasa’s labour deficiency.
Thitinai Patikabut, director of the correctional facility, said only inmates with clean behaviour records were allowed to participate in the free labour exercise.
