Section 40: Definition of detention
Statutory text (Thai original)
กักกัน คือการควบคุมผู้กระทำความผิดติดนิสัยไว้ภายในเขตกำหนด เพื่อป้องกันการกระทำความผิด เพื่อดัดนิสัย และเพื่อฝึกหัดอาชีพ
English translation
Detention is the confining of a habitual offender within a specified area in order to prevent the commission of offenses, to reform character, and to provide occupational training.
This English translation is provided for reference only and has not yet been firm-verified. Always rely on the Thai original.
Firm annotation
Section 40 defines detention, the first measure of safety listed in Section 39. Its stated purposes, preventing further offenses, reforming character, and vocational training, mark it as preventive and rehabilitative rather than punitive, which is why it is directed at habitual offenders rather than ordinary offenders. The conditions for imposing detention on a habitual offender are set out in Section 41, and the calculation of its duration in Section 42. It is distinct from confinement, which is a punishment, and from imprisonment, despite the physical similarity.
Why this matters in practice
Detention only applies to those the court treats as habitual offenders, so it is not a risk in an ordinary first case. Because it is preventive and can run in addition to imprisonment, a person with a qualifying record can face detention of several years after serving the prison term. If the prosecution seeks detention, the fight is over whether the habitual-offender criteria in Section 41 are met, not over the definition itself.
Cited in 12 Supreme Court decisions (1958 to 2024)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 1365/2522 (1979)
- Decision 5059/2560 (2017)
- Decision 155/2501 (1958)
- Decision 408/2525 (1982)
- Decision 7330/2540 (1997)
- Decision 911/2566 (2023)
- Decision 2692/2530 (1987)
- Decision 2481/2528 (1985)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 78 6
- Section 83 5
- Section 39 4
- Section 91 4
- Section 90 4
- Section 41 3
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Frequently asked questions
What is detention (kak kan) under the Thai Penal Code?
Section 40 defines it as confining a habitual offender within a specified area to prevent offending, reform character, and provide vocational training.
Is detention the same as imprisonment?
No. Detention is a preventive measure of safety for habitual offenders, distinct from imprisonment and from confinement as a punishment.
Cite this section
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Plain citation
Penal Code, s. 40 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Penal Code (Thailand), s. 40. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-40/ (accessed 17 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.อ. มาตรา 40 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-40/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-40/"><p>Detention is the confining of a habitual offender within a specified area in order to prevent the commission of offenses, to reform character, and to provide occupational training.</p><footer>Penal Code, s. 40 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-penal-code/section-40/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.