The army will recruit 33 prisoners jailed for illegal gun production or modification as technicians and service officers, Justice Minister Prajin Juntong said on Saturday.
The pilot project to recruit prisoners who were jailed for illegally producing or modifying guns is part of a policy to return inmates to society. Thirty-three were selected from the 70 inmates earlier jailed for the offence to be trained to work for the government, ACM Prajin said.
The government prepared 33 positions in the army -- 20 as technicians and 13 for general services, the justice minister said.
Meanwhile, Narat Sawetanant, director-general of the Corrections Department, said prisons nationwide were crowded, with 320,000 inmates and 14,000 corrections officials. Of the officials, only 1,300 prison are warders, he said.
The government approved 3,000 new positions of warders and his department is training them. The government also allocated a budget for the construction a few new prisons a year as old prisons were in poor conditions and some have been in service for nearly a century, Pol Col Narat said.