Cambodia Spend US$6 Million Annually on Prisoners’ Food: Official

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Written by DAP NEWS -- Saturday, 26 September 2009

(CAAI News Media)

The Cambodian Government last year spent about US$6 million for to feed over 22,000 prison inmates across the country, Interior Ministry spok-esman Khieu Sopheak told DAP News Cambodia on Friday.

The figure is equal to CR2,800 (about US$0.70) per prisoner per day for food, he said a press conference at the ministry.

He called the sum “a heavy matter for the Government.”

“We also are improving the living conditions of those prisoners and inmates,” he said, adding that authorities had also increased the food allowances.

“We do not want to see anyone to be arrested and sentenced by the court and but they committed the crimes by their own choice, so finally they were sent to jail,” Khieu Sopheak said. Cambodia currently has a total of over 22,000 prisoners in 22 jails across the kingdom, he said. “Now we are facing gangsters and so far this year our police authorities arrested 1,590 gangsters across the country to educate about morality and imprison them,” he added.

Of those, 454, including 76 women, have been sent to the court, he said. The suspects were changed with drugs offenses, robbery, destroying private and state properties, disturbing other neighboring people, and “their acts created the disorder security in the society,” the Interior Ministry spokesman said.

Cambodian gangsters have not so far been led by a centralized system of leadership, like the mafia in foreign countries, Keat Chantharith, spokesman for Cambodian National Police Commission, told reporters at the press conference.

Local people, village chiefs, and commune councilors in communities must report crimes to police to prevent gangsters gaining control of areas, he said.