Setting client encoding with jdbc

I'm interested in changing the client encoding from within a java
program. I'm using connection pooling and need to change it depending
on the client's language preference. Is there a function I can call
which changes the client encoding. Something like

pStmt = con.prepareStatement("select
pg_set_client_encoding('LATIN5'); ");
rs = pStmt.executeQuery();

I can set the client encoding from within psql by /encoding LATIN5 but
not sure how to execute something like this from java. Any help would
be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Brad