About PleadOrMax
A clinical, data-driven look at how Thailand’s criminal-justice mechanics — the §78 plea discount, prolonged pretrial detention, extreme speech-offence maxima, and foreign-funded trafficking prosecutions — structurally push accused persons toward guilty pleas regardless of actual guilt.
Editorial stance
PleadOrMax operates on aggregate data only. Every figure on the site traces back to a public dataset (WJP Rule of Law Index, World Prison Brief, FIDH annual prison reports, US State Department TIP Report, Thai Lawyers for Human Rights) or to named journalistic outlets (Bangkok Post, CNN, Reuters, The Washington Post, VICE, ICIJ, The Nation).
We do not analyse, allege, or defend specific living individuals. Named cases — Anchan Preelerd, Mongkhon T. — appear only as illustrations of statutory mechanics already in extensive public reporting. See the methodology page for the full “what we exclude and why” policy.
Numbers we could not verify against a public, citable source have been removed rather than guessed. Comparator cells marked “N/A” are ones we couldn’t verify — no fabricated statutory maxima.
Funding & independence
Self-funded
No advertising. No sponsorship. No paywall. No affiliate links.
PleadOrMax is operated as a personal advocacy project. Hosting and domain costs are paid out of pocket. The site is not a registered charity or NGO, does not solicit donations, and is not affiliated with any Thai political party, human-rights organisation, or foreign government.
What’s different about this site
- Every figure has a source URL. See methodology for the full catalogue.
- Datasets are machine-readable. CSVs and a JSON API at /press. Suitable for academic + journalistic re-use.
- Structural, not personal. The critique targets rules and incentives, not the people navigating them.
- Fresh figures land as they publish. See updates (also available via RSS).
Contact
Corrections, press requests, dataset extensions: press@pleadormax.com. See contact for the full list.