How Thailand actually scores
Independent, public measurements of Thailand\'s criminal-justice performance. Every number on this page is drawn from a publicly available report — WJP 2024, World Prison Brief, FIDH, TLHR, the US TIP Report — with the source URL inline.
Rule-of-law placement (WJP 2024)
The World Justice Project Rule of Law Index ranks 142 countries each October. Thailand sits in the bottom half overall, and the WJP\'s 2024 country profile flags criminal justice in particular as scoring "much lower than the global and regional average."
Detention & overcrowding (World Prison Brief, Dec 2024)
Thailand operates 143 prisons. 102 of them — 71% — exceed their design capacity.
Speech offences — §112 (TLHR & FIDH)
Lèse-majesté is unusual in two ways: bail is routinely denied, and sentences are imposed cumulatively per offending message. Both compound the structural pressure to plead.
Trafficking prosecutions (US TIP Report, 2025 — covering 2024)
Thailand has reported a sharply rising conviction count under US Tier-system pressure. See /trafficking for the structural critique and the foreign organisations funding the cases.
Sources used on this page
Click through to the original report.
- WJP Rule of Law Index 2024 — Thailand country profile World Justice Project · October 2024
- World Prison Brief — Thailand Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research · December 2024
- Thailand Annual Prison Report 2025 FIDH / UCL · 2025
- §112 prosecution statistics — April 2024 update Thai Lawyers for Human Rights · April 2024
- 50-year §112 sentence — Mongkhon T. Thai Lawyers for Human Rights · January 2024
- Thailand: lèse-majesté verdicts reach 100 in less than two years FIDH · November 2023
- 50-year lèse-majesté term a record, say lawyers Bangkok Post · January 2024
- Trafficking in Persons Report 2025 — Thailand US Department of State · June 2025