If you ask the people in Thailand, ‘who is the biggest mafia here?’ The most likely answer will be the Thai police.
Don’t get me wrong, the majority of police officers in Thailand are extremely nice and they do help when you ask them, but there is a significant portion that are involved in less than scrupulous activities.
Why is that bar still open after hours? They paid the cops. Who is running that local casino? The cops. This is common knowledge.
Just yesterday, a 10-shop house casino on Rama 3 was shot up by an angry gambler which killed four people; one of the victims was a police officer.
What was he doing there in the first place? Gambling, running or guarding the place? Whatever the reason, it was illegal.
General Prayut Chan-ocha’s coup promised many things, including political peace and the reformation of the police, but nothing has changed because of the coup-maker’s lacklustre efforts.
Five committees have been set up by the military government in the past five years to reform the police and the only thing that has changed was whose hands the money ended up in.
It used to be corrupt police officers working with corrupt politicians but now, some of it has gone to corrupt soldiers as well.
This government, and many in the past, could have done a lot more to reform the police because the police in this country do not answer to the public, they only answer to the prime minister’s office.
Not only are they not reforming the police, but this government has also been using them as a political tool to benefit the regime.
Just ask the student’s being arrested by Police Chief Chaktip Chaijinda’s forces as they enforce the former junta’s made up laws.
If Meechai Ruchupan, the Constitution Drafting Committee’s chairman, now tasked by Prayut to reform the police, really wants to reform the police he should make them follow the people’s wishes.
The policing by consent philosophy that is being practised in the United Kingdom should be something that Meechai considers.
The first ‘General Instructions’ that were issued to every new police officer in the UK is “to prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.”
“[And] to recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.”
In Thailand, the commands from the prime minister’s office go straight to the national police chief, who then gives orders to the senior officers throughout the country, so why would they listen to the people?
New officers are like new graduates.
They are full of dreams before they are met with the reality that it does not matter how much they do to help people, they will not excel because of the centralisation of power and a top-down system that does little to empower local forces.
The police have to be decentralised and the new bill should make them answer to the people, not the PM’s office.
They should be transferred and promoted based on public involvement instead of the government’s sole decision.
But given that Meechai has been writing every repressive and undemocratic constitution after every single coup, I really doubt that it would happen under this government.
