Since January 1, about 120 civil cases and 130 criminal cases have been put before the JFC. Forty per cent of these involved drugs, 30 per cent theft and 10 per cent sexual offences.
He was speaking after a seminar clarifying a 2010 amendment to the Juvenile and Family Court Act of 1991, which aims to stop many of the more frivolous cases coming to court, and to prevent youngsters being put behind bars as a matter of routine.
The amendment states that police officers must deliver juvenile suspects to the JFC within 24 hours of their arrest. This gives the court a chance to take part in any investigation, in order to prevent unfair treatment of children (10 to 15 years old) or juveniles (15 to 18).
Another aim of the amendment is to reduce the number of cases that have to be heard by the court, because it allows court officials to look into the circumstances and decide whether the case actually merits a hearing.
However, Judge Pornchai said that Phuket is a different from the rest of the country.
“Here we have a large hidden population, with high numbers of civil cases related to the children of illegal immigrants,” said the judge.
Examples, he said, include immigrant children brought into Phuket by their parents and therefore being on the island illegally, or children whose parents simply do not take care of them or take responsibility for them.
Because the child is in Thailand illegally, that child, if caught, must be brought before the court. Last year 40 per cent of cases heard in the Phuket JFC involved the children of illegal immigrants.
The amendment puts an end to the previous practice of sending young Thai offenders straight to the Juvenile Detention Centre, if the court considers that the juvenile should instead be placed under parental care.
In the case of parental care being ordered, the juvenile will also be ordered to make regular appearances at the new Juvenile & Family Counseling Centre, which was set up after the 2010 amendment came into force. The aim of the centre is to advise and rehabilitate young people, and to get them back into the mainstream of society.
The Phuket centre opened in April. It was officially inaugurated on Monday (July 16) by the Chief Judge of the Central Juvenile & Family Court (CJFC), Dr Jiraniti Hawanon.
Judge Jiraniti said he hoped the revision to the Act would help alleviate problems with juveniles.
“Juvenile problems don’t start from the juveniles themselves, but from the environment they grow up in, which does not offer them models for good behaviour or give them ways out in times of crisis,” said Judge Jiraniti.
The CJFC has introduced four methods which it hopes will steer youngsters away from a life of crime: counselling, rehabilitation, creating a community network to monitor juvenile problems and building up social power to control or modify the behaviour of young people.
“The JFC should be the last recourse for juvenile problems,” he explained. “If these [four methods] are applied in society, we hope that problems involving juveniles can be solved at a much earlier stage.”