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The objectives of the research entitled 'the Life Career of the Death Row Inmates' were: to study the lives of death row prisoners both before and while committing crimes as well as when serving death sentences in prison; to investigate the factors contributing to their criminal offences and; to examine a feeling of apprehension over the death penalty among them. This study was a qualitative research collecting and analyzing data from the in-depth interviews with 6 male and 4 female death row inmates selected by the purposive sampling technique. The research findings were that, firstly, regarding their social background, before becoming the death row inmates they were from either lower or lower-middle social class. Most of their highest education remained at primary school levels and their average earnings were less than 10,000 baht per month. Secondly it was found that, while committing crimes, most of them were not professional criminals as almost all interviewees were first-time offenders. They were sentenced to death penalty for the crimes driven by the emotionally stressful circumstances, the socialization by peers, the social learning and the low level of self-control, as well as the fearlessness in receiving the capital punishment at the moments they were perpetrating crimes. However, after getting the death penalty and while they were detained in prison, the death row prisoners were deeply apprehensive of death sentence and totally stressed about their await execution dates, the news about royal pardon and the family problems after being sentenced to death. In addition, although more than half of the participants were not afraid of receiving death penalty while they were perpetrating crimes, all of them became extremely fearful of capital punishment after being sentenced to death. The suggestions from the study were that, first of all, the family should be an important social unit cultivating love, caring and support within its members. Besides, the members of society particularly the children and teenagers should be strongly supported in socializing with the decent friends. Also, there should be a campaign aimed at publicizing and educating the basic knowledge of laws and legal issues so that the people in society could understand them correctly. Further, the society members should be fostered to hold onto the social values and norms of having a good way of life, and be encouraged to learn to effectively control themselves. Finally, the treatment of death row prisoners should be provided separately from other inmates. |
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