High risk ... every year around 3,000 Britons find themselves behind bars. Photograph: Jeffrey L. Rotman/Corbis
If you are about to head off on a gap year abroad or embark on a backpacking holiday in Asia or Latin America, bear in mind that every year around 3,000 Britons find themselves contemplating foreign scenery from the wrong side of prison bars, says Duncan Campbell.
While some may be professional criminals, many are just unaware that a casual spliff on the beach might - just might - end up with a spell in the slammer.
"There is massive ignorance - or arrogance," says Pauline Crowe of Prisoners Abroad, the welfare organisation that helps Britons in foreign jails. She said that some travellers behaved in ways that they would not in Britain. "The key factor seems to be the feeling that 'it won't happen to me'."
The arrests of two British teenagers in Ghana and the death of a young Briton in a police station in Brazil this month highlight the issue. The US, Spain, France, Australia and Thailand are the top five countries with British inmates, according to Prisoners Abroad. The highest proportion of prisoners are detained for drugs offences, with nearly half (46%) inside for that reason. The Foreign Office now issues advice on its web-site as part of their "Know before you go" campaign.
Some travellers are unaware of the seriousness with which visa violations are regarded in a number of countries, imagining that they will just be told to leave if they are found to have overstayed. In Thailand, a major current issue is of Britons who overstay their visas and are being held for months in conditions worse than the notorious Bangkok Hilton, according to a former prisoner who has just returned to Britain.
John Davies, who was released from jail in Thailand after serving 17 years on a drugs charge, said that people who had failed to renew their visas or had their passports stolen were being kept in detention centres because the Foreign Office declined to pay for their repatriation.
"There are lots of Britons being held for months in Thailand in the detention centre just because their visas are out of date," said Davies. Davies, who is now back in Britain, said that every other country assisted their overstayers by lending them the money for the fare home. "The Foreign Office doesn't give two hoots about them," he said.
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said that there were currently 130 Britons detained in Thailand, of whom 10 were held at the immigration detention centre.
The message from all the organisations, voluntary or state, is the same: respect the laws of whatever country you are in or you may become a news story yourself.
· For more information see www.fairtrialsabroad.org and www.prisonersabroad.org.uk
