The five-day campaign, which will end on Monday (Dec 7), allows family visits from 9am to11am and from 1pm to 3pm.
Prisoners can have no more than five family members per visit, and the family members must be direct relations, explained Pichit Wanjit, Chief Warden at Phuket Prison.
“The event arose from Department of Correction officers wanting prisoners to have the opportunity to meet their family and spend time together so they will not feel lonely and isolated and to give them a sense of hope for future,” Warden Pichit explained.
To be eligible for the family visits, prisoners must be known for their good behaviour in prison, have never broken prison rules, must be clean from drugs and must have been handed down prison sentences of no more than 10 years.”
Phuket Prison is currently home to 2,590 inmates, according to the daily count posted at the facility.
Chief Warden Pichit said that at this stage he was not aware of any pardons to be decreed to prisoners serving light sentences as part of the annual celebrations for HM The King’s birthday, to be celebrated nationwide tomorrow.