Police Integrity in Thailand

Abstract

The Royal Thai Police, a police agency decentralized by law, yet centralized in reality, is under the umbrella of the office of the prime minister. This chapter explores the forms of police integrity among the Thai police officers. The representative stratified sample of 280 police officers, collected in 2013, evaluated hypothetical scenarios describing various forms of police misconduct. Results suggest that police officers evaluated the behaviors described in the scenarios to vary in their seriousness. Only one scenario—an opportunistic theft—was evaluated as very serious and, at the same time, was recognized by the overwhelming majority as rule violating. The respondents thought that most of the described behaviors deserve a milder form of discipline. At the same time, they also expected relatively mild discipline for most of the scenarios. They thought that dismissal was the appropriate and expected discipline only for the opportunistic theft. We also detected the code of silence and concluded that it is not a flat prohibition of reporting. The more serious the respondents perceived the scenarios, the less likely they were to cover it by the code. Finally, the police officers expected that other officers in their agencies would be much more likely to protect all these behaviors in silence than they themselves would.

Introduction

Thailand is a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), located in Southeast Asia . According to the latest national census in 2010, it has a population of approximately 66 million (National Statistical Office 2010). The number of women in the population slightly exceeds the number of men (1:0.96; National Statistical Office 2010). The overwhelming majority of Thais practice Buddhism (about 94 %). The second most dominant religion is Islam, practiced by about 5 % of the population, followed by Christianity with approximately 1 % (National Statistical Office 2010). Almost all citizens (96 %) are Thai native, and the remaining 4 % are either Burmese, Laotian, Cambodian, or Chinese (National Statistical Office 2010).

The country is ranked third on the index of economic freedom in the region, following Singapore and Malaysia (The Heritage Foundation 2014) . The gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 2013 was around 8 %, with an even higher GDP growth expected in 2014 (Bhaopichitr et al. 2014). In 2014, Thailand’s per capita income is 174,319 Thai Baht (approximately US$ 5800; Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board 2014).

Though the country’s political system had changed from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy since the 1932 revolution, the country still does not completely function as a democratic system. There were 18 military coups since 1932. The 19th coup took place on May 22, 2014. It was a successful overthrow of the elected government by a group of four military generals and a police general (called the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO); The Heritage Foundation 2014). After the coup in May, Army General Prayuth Chan-o-cha, the coup leader, was appointed prime minister by appointed members of the parliament (MPs are appointed by the NCPO’s method which in its entirety is not derived by elections). The coup and the new cabinet claimed that they stopped the political turmoil and the daily casualties inflicted over the past 6 months by the two divided political groups (one side supporting the ex-prime minister, the “Red-Shirts,” composed of people from rural areas, and the other side supporting the coup, the “Yellow-Shirts,” composed of people from the middle-class society in urban areas, especially based in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand). So far, the NCPO and the junta government are still coping with the country’s political problems by enforcing martial law in which all political activities are banned. Martial law is enforced and, as a recent report by the Human Rights Watch revealed, a “[f]ailure to comply with censorship orders could result in prosecution before a military court” (Human Rights Watch 2014).

Because of the political instability in the country, and the police subordinate role to the politicians, the police have long been controlled and governed by the majority party that heads the government. The history of the Royal Thai Police (RTP) can be dated back to the reign of King Rama IV (1851–1868). The establishment of the RTP started when the king appointed Captain Joseph Byrd Ames, an Englishman, to form the police force for the protection of Thai people’s lives and properties (ASEANAPOL n.d.). However, there have been several human rights scandals related to the RTP. There is widespread belief that the police support every government and that they violate citizens’ human rights. For example, in early 2003, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced that the war on drugs would be waged (Human Rights Watch 2004). Over the course of the next few months, as part of the war on drugs by the Thaksin government, more than 2000 people were brutally and wrongfully killed by the Thai police, and more than 70,000 people were arrested (Human Rights Watch 2004). However, there are no official records about these abuses (Phillip 2007).

The Thai police are headed by a commissioner, who is required to have served in the police for at least 30 years before becoming the chief of police. The police chief is appointed by National Police Committee, which includes the prime minister, deputy prime minister, secretary of defense,¹ permanent secretary, budget ­director of the Budget Bureau, and two specialized committee members. He² who will become a chief of police must be actively serving in the police. Most importantly, he must be an individual with a good connection with the current prime minister. In August 2014, RTP’s chief of police has been appointed after the meeting of the Police Commission chaired by Army General Prayuth Chan-o-cha, the now coup leader and prime minister .

According to the National Police Act of 2004, the organizational structure of the Thai police is decentralized. However, in reality, the police force of approximately 230,000 officers is still controlled by the chief of police located in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand . Therefore, decentralization did not occur, and the RTP is actually a centralized police organization. The National Police are divided into ten geographical regions. Each region has a police commissioner,³ who holds the rank of police lieutenant general, overseeing the Regional Police Agency. Further, there are several divisions within each regional police agency and several police stations within each division. In sum, there are six categories within the organizational structure, including special operations, crime prevention and suppression, crime prevention and suppression support, education , service, and general staff (INTERPOL n.d.).

There are approximately 6000–7000 stations across the country. Most of the traditional police work takes place at the level of police stations under the crime prevention and suppression category. The police stations are the heart of all police operations that maintain peace and order, as well as law enforcement. Most police stations consist of five sections: administration, inquiry, investigation, traffic control, and patrol. The larger police stations are headed by a police colonel, while the smaller police stations may be headed by a police lieutenant colonel or a police major, depending on the size of the population in that area.

This chapter focuses on police integrity among the RTP officers. It begins with the examination of the dimensions of the police integrity theory, and their application to the conditions in the RTP . The chapter continues with the empirical study of the contours of police integrity in the RTP. Based on the police integrity survey, the chapter explores the police officers’ perceptions of misconduct seriousness, their assessments of rule-violating behavior, their views about the appropriate and expected discipline, as well as their views about the code of silence.

Dimensions of the Police Integrity Theory and the Royal Thai Police

This chapter relies on the police integrity theory originated by Klockars et al. (1997). Police integrity “[is] the normative inclination among police to resist temptations to abuse the rights and privileges of their occupation” (Klockars et al. 2006, p. 1). Policing, as an occupation, creates many temptations and, as the authors wrote, “police officers [of high integrity] are able to resist various forms of temptations, including corruption, use of excessive force, and other forms of abuse, the rights and privileges to which policing as an occupation exposes them” (Klockars et al. 2006). Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković (2004) suggest that the theory of police integrity has four dimensions, including “quality of official rules, quality of the agency’s own internal control of misconduct, restraining the code of silence, and the influence of the larger environment.”

Organizational Rules

The theory of police integrity emphasizes that police agencies should have written rules prescribing appropriate behavior and proscribing inappropriate behavior . At the same time, Klockars et al. (2004a, 2006) emphasize that the extent to which official rules regulate police officers’ behavior varies across police agencies. According to Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković (2004), police agencies of high integrity will have extensive rules. In addition, they will teach these rules and enforce them when police officers violate them (Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 2004).

While the RTP used to be under the department of interior, the National Police Act (NPA) of 2004, Section 6, puts the RTP under the administration of the prime minister. In other words, the RTP are under the auspices of neither the department of interior nor the department of justice. Thus, their first priority is to provide security to the king, queen, and the royal family. The next level of responsibility for the RTP includes the duty to enforce the criminal code and other legal codes, maintain peace and order, and provide safety in the country.

The Thai Criminal Procedural Code of 1934 (2004 revision) provides the basic set of legal rules used to balance the police powers of arrest, search, and seizure with the rights of the Thai people, as determined by the Thai Constitution. The constitution has enacted the rights of the citizens to be detained by the police no longer than 48 hours; however, under the recent political turmoil of the country (December 2013–May 2014) and after the 2014 coup d’état, the Thai police or the Thai military can detain suspects for interrogation purposes for up to a maximum of 7 days under the martial law (in effect across the country).

The 2014 temporary constitution does not mention the right of the Thai citizens against unreasonable search or arrest. However, the police still rely on Section 33 of the 2007 Constitution, which states that “[the] arrest and custody of a person are prohibited, except directed by court order or another virtue of the law” and ­combines these constitutional norms with rules contained in the Criminal Procedural Code section about search, seizure, and detention. Moreover, Sect. 2, Article 8 of Notice of Proposed Amendment (NPA) 2004 further reinforces the protection of citizens’ rights and establishes that, “a police officer must strictly respect the right and freedom of people as endorsed by the Constitution and other laws with due process and rule of law.”

In addition to the 2007 Constitution and the 2004 Criminal Procedural Code, there are two other official sets of rules that regulate police operations. The RTP has enacted the so-called regulations on noncriminal cases of 2004 and the regulations on criminal cases of 2004_. The 2004 regulations on noncriminal cases have 57 categories and regulate many aspects of police behavior. For example, proper behavior and discipline are regulated in category 1, recruitment of police officers and the process of becoming a police officer are regulated in categories 2–4, ranks are defined in category 7, decorations on the uniforms are described in category 10, and the police training is elaborated upon in category 11. In a nutshell, these regulations on noncriminal cases cover almost every aspect of a police officer’s life, from day one in the RTP until retirement. Despite the complexity and extent of these rules, there are no specific rules addressing police corruption or integrity issues. Furthermore, none of the 2004 regulations addressed the use of force issues or violations. However, the NPA 2004 Act vaguely mentions excessive force violations under Section 79(3), which regulates that the police must refrain from such actions toward citizens, including abusing, oppressing, or injuring people during the performance of their official duties.

Nonetheless, the Thai Criminal Code of 1956 in Section 149 prohibits public officials (which includes police officers), members of the parliament, and local government officials from demanding, accepting, or agreeing to accept any bribes . The prohibition covers both monetary gain and any benefit for either the official or another person. The official could be punished if he does something he was not supposed to do or does not do something he was supposed to do, regardless of whether his behavior constitutes a violation of the official rules. Section 149 of the Thai Criminal Code of 1956 prescribes the appropriate punishment for criminal behavior as well; punishment can include imprisonment for up to 12 years, fine of up to 40,000 Thai baht (approximately US$ 1000), and/or the death penalty. For police misconduct that does not fall into any category by Thai law, there is Section 157 of the 1956 Thai Criminal Code that is regularly enforced to crack down on police wrongdoings. Section 157 states that “[w]hoever, being an official, wrongfully exercises or does not exercise any of his functions to the injury of any person, or dishonestly exercises or omits to exercise any of his functions, shall be punished with imprisonment of 1–10 years or fined of two thousand to twenty thousand Baht, or both” (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2011).

In addition, the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) , an independent organization under the 1997 Thai Constitution and the most important agency that fights corruption in Thailand, has enacted a regulation on the acceptance of gift and/or benefits by governmental officials. Under the Act on prevention and ­suppression of corruption of 2000 (attached to the 1997 Thai Constitution), Section 103 specifies that government officials (including police officers) shall not accept gifts or benefits equal to or in excess of 3000 Thai Baht (approximately US$ 100) from individuals who are not their relatives. Otherwise, officials may be prosecuted for the acceptance of bribes.

Police Detection and Investigation of Police Misconduct

The second dimension of the integrity theory focuses on the police agency’s own methods toward rule-violation management, including “detection, investigation, and discipline of rule violations” (Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 2004). The police agency of high integrity is expected to have set up and use a complex set of methods of such control .

Corruption cases are categorized as typical criminal cases; thus, the process is similar to other common cases. This process involves four major agencies: the RTP, the prosecutors or the Office of the Attorney General, the courts of Thailand, and the Department of Corrections under the Thailand Department of Justice. The process is rather similar to the U.S. criminal process, except that prosecutors in Thailand are not involved in the investigation stage as the district attorneys (DAs) are in the USA. Thus, most of the criminal investigation in the Thai criminal justice system is performed by police officers. However, the protection of individual rights is similar to the protection in the USA (e.g., the police must obtain search or arrest warrants from Thai courts). The RTP have the Counter Corruption Division set up under the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB). The CIB and, particularly, the Counter Corruption Division have jurisdiction all over the country, similar to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the USA. The division’s work in corruption cases extends not only to police officers but also to all government officials.

The statistics on corruption cases, the NACC investigated in a period of 5 years (between the fiscal years of 2007 and 2011), suggest that the number of cases has increased by about 200 cases from 2819 to 3092 cases. About 65 % of these cases involve governmental officials (except members of parliament) charged with corruption by taking advantage of their position of power in the criminal justice system (Office of Justice Affairs 2011). However, most corruption cases that were investigated and in which charges were brought forward, target other government officials; only about one fifth of all NACC corruption cases were filed against police officers (Office of the National Anti-Corruption Commission n.d.). For example, one of the most recent cases involved an investigation into the rice scheme corruption. The corruption investigation targeted the government of Ms. Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand’s former prime minister ousted by the military coup on May 22, 2014 .

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) , another police bureau, deals with matters related to police corruption. The OIG is a part of the RTP and serves as an office where citizens may file a complaint about any form of police misconduct. Everybody has the right to submit or file complaints to the OIG. By law, the complaint must include facts and other evidence that will allow the police to further ­investigate the issues raised in the complaint. The OIG provides three channels for people to file complaints, including telephone, fax, and a website. The police complaint process involves two agencies of the RTP (the OIG and Counter Corruption Division) and the NACC. After the OIG has received the complaint, it will collect the information and report to the director of the OIG. If the case shows any evidence of potential corruption, the chief of police will order the Counter Corruption Division to investigate it further. The case will also fall under the provision of the NACC . If the case seems to be just a violation of the official rules, the RTP has discretion depending on the severity of the violation. Potential outcomes range from the least serious disciplinary options, such as a warning, detention, or cutting wages, to the most severe disciplinary options, such as a dismissal. There was a recent case against highly ranked police officers (a police major general and a police lieutenant colonel)⁴ for corruption. These police officers were charged with corruption.

Although the police in Thailand are infamous for their low integrity, there were few charges brought against the police officers; even if the officers were charged, justice would be slow. Statistics from the NACC show that in only one fifth of the cases, the accused were police officers (Officer of the National Anti-Corruption Commission n.d.). As the Global Advice Networks on Integrity Solutions (2014) writes:

Police officers are being paid relatively low wages, creating an incentive for ‘earning’ additional money by demanding bribes and extorting money from offenders. The same report states that an owner of a transportation business accused police of demanding bribes from his drivers; when the driver refused, the officers allegedly pushed the truck into a canal and the driver and his wife disappeared…. The police in Thailand is characterized by a climate of impunity and rare prosecution, as described by the Human Rights Report 2013. The Human Rights Report 2012 states that 211 Royal Thai Police (RTP) officers were criminally charged during the second half of 2012.

During the 2010 fiscal year, there were about 7000 cases on police misconduct within the RTP. The Human Rights Report of 2012 indicated that there were two police generals involved in the torture of suspects in the separatist/insurgency cases in the southern part of Thailand (U.S. Department of State 2012). On April 1, 2014, the NACC indicted police commanders in charge of the police motorcycle procurement. The NACC charged the officers under Section 12 of Governmental Procurement Act 1999 and Section 157 of the Thai Penal Code of 1956. This case is being processed, and it will take 4–5 years under the Thai justice system before it will be completed (Officer of the National Anti-Corruption Commission n.d.).

Curtailing the Code of Silence

The third aspect of the police integrity theory is concerned with the code of ­silence within the police organization, and how the agency restrains it (Klockars et al. 2004a, 2006). The theory suggests that high-integrity police agencies are less likely to have the strong code of silence. In contrast, lower police integrity can be seen in police agencies with the stronger code of silence. Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković (2004) claimed that “curtailing the code of silence is critical for agencies of ­integrity.”

There are signs that the Thai police subculture exists and that it contains the code of silence. To become a police officer in Thailand does not necessarily require a completely clean criminal record. Article 2(4) of the Police Code of Conduct of 2003 clearly stipulates that the successful applicants for the police officer position should not have been prosecuted, tried, and punished with imprisonment, except if they were tried and convicted of the offenses of negligence or misdemeanors which resulted in a fine of under 1000 Thai Baht (approximately US$ 33) and/or imprisonment for less than a month.

Suwanmala described a broadcasting from 2003, which he claimed was the first one in Thailand in which the public could see actual bribery on TV. It involved the infamous highway patrol case of police corruption. The so-called highway patrol police, a police division within the Bureau of Central Investigation of the RTP , have jurisdiction over all the highways in the country. The TV footage captured by the independent TV channel (ITV) showed that every truck driver who has passed through the highway checkpoints must throw the 20 Thai Baht bill (approximately US$ 0.25) into the bucket in front of the checkpoints or hand the bill directly to a policeman. Then, the bribery money collected this way was later gathered and disseminated to every police officer within the chain of command (Suwanmala n.d.). He claimed that there was a highway patrol officer, named Police Senior Sergeant Major Chit Thongchit, who broke the code of silence and disclosed the highway bribery to the public almost 10 years ago. After the incident, he was forced to resign from the RTP and later was assassinated by fellow police officers on January 15, 2009 (Suwanmala n.d.). A Bangkok Post reporter interviewed a police deputy commander from the CIB in charge and investigated Thongchit’s assassination, who stated that:

…from our field investigations, we realized that no policeman liked him because he tried to expose their extortion activities…on the other hand, every villager loved him because he always lent them a hand every time they had problems with police (Ngamkham 2009).

Indeed, breaking the code of silence seems to be a highly risky activity. Assassinations are used to deter anyone who would consider breaking the code of silence. As Suwanmala (n.d.) revealed, there were at least six other whistle-blowers who were killed in connection with several criminal cases involving police corruption.

We were not able to find any existing empirical studies measuring the contours of the code of silence among the Thai police officers directly. Instead, we found only one study measuring the level of police integrity among the Thai police. In the foreword to the study of police integrity, Khruakham and Joongyeup (2013, p. 238) wrote that, “[a] number of studies worldwide have examined police or public attitudes toward misconduct…no such research has been implemented for Thailand despite the relatively high prevalence of the problem.”

Khruakham and Lee (2013) surveyed 295 police cadets at the Royal Police Cadet Academy in Thailand . Using the first questionnaire developed by Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković (2004), the respondents were asked to evaluate 11 hypothetical scenarios mostly focusing on police corruption. The authors found that, “the police cadets in Thailand were relatively tolerant of misconduct when compared with police officers in the other countries [U.S.A., the Netherlands , and Croatia]” (Khruakham and Joongyeup 2013, p. 243). Unfortunately, Khruakham and Lee (2013) did not use all the measures of police integrity and, for example, the willingness to report misconduct variables were not used in the analyses. However, previous research using the same questionnaire (e.g., Klockars et al. 2004b) reported that the seven measures of police integrity were strongly correlated. Thus, the findings about the lack of seriousness that the respondents expressed when evaluating these hypothetical scenarios probably resemble the findings on the willingness to report.

Influence of Social and Political Environment

The fourth dimension of the police integrity theory explores the influence of the larger social and political environment on the police agencies and police officers. The theory suggests that different societies create different expectations of the appropriate police conduct (Klockars and Kutnjak Ivković 2004).

According to the results of research on corruption and Thai democracy, by Phongpaichat et al. (n.d.), there are four types of corruption in Thailand: (1) syndicate corruption, (2) kin tām nām ⁵ or voluntary bribes, (3) bribes paid to get a national concession, and (4) corruption from government procurement. Police corruption is categorized into the first type—the syndicate corruption. This comes in the form of corruption in which subordinate officials collect bribes or unofficial taxes from businesses, either illegal or legal, for their supervisors. The bribes are then divided among the police officers in the agency (Phongpaichat et al. 1991).

Phongpaichit and Piriyarangsan (1996) pointed out that, from ancient times, the Thai culture has been influenced by the beliefs and values supportive of corruption. They further argued that, based on the traditional Thai beliefs, corruption is spreading among the police or government officers all over the country (Phongpaichit and Piriyarangsan 1996). Similarly, the Human Rights Report 2012 stated that, “corruption remained widespread among members of the police” (U.S. Department of State 2012).

This tendency is particularly enhanced with the lack of labeling of such actions as corruption and, generally, something that is viewed as wrong. Phongpaichit and Piriyarangsan (1996) described the ancient Thai administrative system called Sakdina (similar to the feudal system), in which government officers may legally accept gifts or money from citizens (as cited in Ariyabuddhiphongs and Hongladarom 2014, p. 185). Phongpaichit and Piriyarangsan (1996, pp. 112–113) gave the following description about the historical roots of police corruption:

The establishment of the police force was one element of the administrative reforms fashioned by King Chulalongkorn in the late nineteenth century. One of the main purposes of these reforms was to regularize and centralize the system of revenue collection, so as to reduce the leakage into the pockets of tax collectors under the gin muang system [This system allows local officials obtain their income from a percentage of the taxes they had collected]. In the reforms, the king took away the function of taxation from local governors…. He [the King] replaced these local officials with men appointed and controlled from Bangkok. These new bureaucrats were paid a regular salary and were no longer supposed to obtain their income from a percentage of the taxes they collected.

Currently, corruption continues to be a problem in the Thai society. Indeed, the 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) shows a low score of 35/100 for Thailand and ranks the country as the 102nd among the 177 countries ranked. Ariyabuddhiphongs and Hongladarom’s (2014) revealed that “bribe-taking [in Thailand] was slightly acceptable and they somewhat agreed that bribe-payment was a reciprocal obligation” (p. 184). In accordance with the trend in the society at large, the 2013 Human Right Report reports that corruption is widespread within police agencies as well (U.S. Department of State 2012). The 2013 Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer revealed that 71 % of the respondents evaluated the Thai police as either “corrupt” or “extremely corrupt.” Phongpaichit and Piriyarangsan (1996) wrote that, “police officers pay their superiors in order to advance up to more important positions. Subordinates are then held to extort money from the people on behalf of the officers” (Phongpaichit and Piriyarangsan 1996, p. 111). Furthermore, Khruakham and Lee’s study (2013) found that “public-assessed police corruption is more serious in Thailand than in Western countries, such as the USA, Sweden, Finland , the Netherlands and Norway, among others” (p. 237).

The extent to which the Thai police officers use excessive force is not known. Phongpaichit and Piriyarangsan (1996) stated that, “General Pho Sriyanon, the most notorious director of the police at this time [1951 through 1957], created a squad of special aides known as aswin waen phet (knights of the diamond ring), who basically acted as his private hit men” (p. 116). Recently, in 2011, a group of plainclothes police officers shot and killed an alleged drug trafficker, Pairote; the police planted drugs in his pants and argued that Pairote was armed with a gun and shot at the police first. The subsequent inquiry revealed that he was unarmed and was not involved in any drug trafficking (Human Rights Watch 2012).

At present, there are serious attempts in campaigning against corruption in the civil service in Thailand. However, Thailand is under the control of the junta government and the NCPO has enacted order no. 69/2014 about the surveillance on the protection and solution of corruption. Under this initiative, the NCPO has used the Office of Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC), first established in 2012, in accordance with the enactment of the Administration Measurement in Prevention and Suppression Corruption Act of 2008. This new agency is under the provision of the department of justice and will be the agency that deals with corruption cases similar to the NACC. However, the PACC will investigate corruption cases that involve public servants who hold positions lower than senior executives. Cases involving senior executives are still under the investigative division within the NACC .

There are two major aspects and six measurements that the PACC must prepare in the initiative process, which are to improve the overall transparency of Thailand, and increase Thailand’s CPI ranking. The six measurements include (1) investigation of corruption cases and formulation of preliminary reports within 30 days, (2) punishment of public servants under strict disciplinary violation, (3) prosecution of corruption cases through PACC or NACC, (4) establishment of a network of corruption watchdogs, (5) establishment of corruption-free organizations, and (6) instilling the anticorruption awareness among the Thai citizens (Office of Public Sector AntiCorruption Commission 2014).

Measuring Police Integrity

Questionnaire

The questionnaire, developed by Klockars et al. (2006), contains descriptions of 11 hypothetical scenarios. The nature of the behaviors described in the questionnaire ranges in their severity from the very mild examples of misconduct, such as the acceptance of free food and a verbal abuse of a citizen, to the very serious examples of misconduct, such as the use of deadly force and a theft of an item from a crime scene. The questionnaire also includes various forms of police misconduct. Specifically, there are five scenarios containing examples of police corruption, four scenarios containing examples of the use of excessive force, and two scenarios containing examples of other forms of police misconduct (e.g., falsification of the official report, failure to execute an arrest warrant). Scenarios were translated into Thai by a native speaker .

After the respondents read the description of each example, they were asked to provide answers to the same seven questions. The first two questions asked the respondents to assess how serious they evaluate the described misconduct and how serious other police officers in the agency would assess it. The respondents were also asked to ascertain whether the described violation violates the official agency rules. Then, the respondents needed to state what they thought that the appropriate and expected discipline should and would be for such behavior. Finally, the respondents were asked whether they would be willing to report the behavior, and whether other police officers in their agency would likely do the same. The answers for most questions relied on the Likert-type scale from 1 to 5. Questions about the appropriate and expected discipline are country dependent. However, we assessed that the original U.S. version of the answers worked well for the Thai conditions (1 = “none,” 2 = “verbal reprimand,” 3 = “written reprimand,” 4 = “period of suspension without pay,” 5 = “demotion in rank,” 6 = “dismissal”) and kept these answers in the questionnaire. The questionnaire also contained several demographic questions. In particular, the respondents were asked about the length of their service, the supervisory position, rank, assignment, and gender.

The Sample

In 2013, questionnaires were distributed to the police officers employed in a stratified representative sample of Thai police stations. The sample of police stations was drawn to represent both police administrations and police agencies in northern Thailand . The questionnaires were distributed in seven police stations in the northern region (see Table 10.1). In addition, they were distributed to the police officers attending training sessions at the Police Education Bureau (Table 10.1). This course was conducted in Bangkok by the RTP Bureau of Education. The course that was held at the time was the Superintendents’ Course, a required training for every ­future police superintendent, a chief of a police station. The length of the course is 4 months; the course intends to strengthen their knowledge about the rules and laws , and teach them about new investigation techniques, or even well-known police theories such as community policing. This course prepares them for their new role as the head of police stations across the country.

Table 10.1 Police stations

The Thai sample, featuring the response rate of 94 %, consists of 280 police officers (Table 10.1). The overwhelming majority of the officers were experienced officers (Table 10.2). Specifically, 90 % of the officers had more than 5 years of experience, and about 70 % had more than 15 years of experience (Table 10.2). About one half of the respondents were supervisors. Their supervisory position was related to their rank (Table 10.3); all lance corporals, corporals, sergeant, sergeant majors, senior sergeant majors, and sublieutenants in the sample were not supervisors, while all lieutenants, captains, majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels were supervisors (Table 10.2).

Table 10.2 Respondents’ demographic characteristics

Table 10.3 Respondents’ rank by the supervisory position

Most of the respondents were employed in patrol (40 %), detective/investigative units (27 %), or administrative positions (20 %; Table 10.2). About 10 % worked as community-policing officers. In addition, the overwhelming majority of the respondents (91 %) were men (Table 10.2).

Finally, the last question asked the respondents whether they were truthful in filing out the questionnaire. If the respondents did not answer affirmatively, their answers were excluded from further analysis. About 3 % of the respondents wrote that they did not answer the questions honestly and additional 1 % did not provide any answer to the question; their answers were excluded from further analyses.

The Results

Seriousness

The respondents were asked to evaluate how serious they perceived the behaviors described in the scenarios, as well as to estimate how serious most police officers in their agencies would evaluate them. They were offered answers on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = “not at all serious” to 5 = “very serious.”

The results suggest that the respondents thought that these scenarios vary substantially in terms of their seriousness, with a number of scenarios having the means close to the nonserious side of the scale, such as scenario 1 (free meals, gifts from merchants; Table 10.4), to the scenarios with the means close to the serious side of the scale, such as scenario 3 (theft of knife from crime scene). Based on the values of their means, scenarios could be divided into three groups.

Table 10.4 Police officer perceptions of seriousness and violation of rules

The least serious group, below the midpoint of the scale, includes acceptance of free meals and gifts from merchants (scenario 1), verbal abuse of citizens (scenario 7), the cover-up of police driving under the influence (DUI) and accident (scenario 8), and the auto body shop kickback (scenario 9). It is somewhat surprising that kickback, traditionally a serious form of corruption, is classified into the least serious forms of misconduct in the questionnaire. On the other hand, prior research on police integrity (Klockars et al. 2004b) shows that acceptance of gratuities, internal corruption, and verbal abuse have been perceived among the least serious scenarios in the questionnaire by the American respondents.

The middle group (means above the midpoint of 3 and into the serious side of the scale up to 4) includes six scenarios (scenario 2: failure to arrest friend with warrant; scenario 4: unjustifiable use of deadly force; scenario 5: supervisor offers holiday for errands; scenario 6: officer strikes prisoner who hurts partner; scenario 10: false report on drug on dealer; scenario 11: Sgt. fails to halt beating; Table 10.4), as diverse as failure to execute an arrest warrant (scenario 2), use of deadly force (scenario 4), and offer of internal corruption (scenario 5).

The most serious group (above four and well into the serious side of the scale) includes only scenario 3, describing the theft of a knife from the crime scene (­Table 10.4). In this scenario, the police officer not only violates the official rules but also the norms of criminal law, so it is not surprising that such a scenario has been evaluated among the most serious in the questionnaire. On the other hand, it is surprising not to find the use of deadly force (scenario 4) in the same group.

The respondents were quite able to distinguish among the scenarios within the same forms of police misconduct. Acceptance of free meals and gifts from merchants (scenario 1), cover-up of police DUI accident (scenario 8), and acceptance of a kickback arrangement (scenario 9) were evaluated as the least serious forms of corruption in the questionnaire (Table 10.4), while theft of a knife from the crime scene (scenario 3) was evaluated as the most serious (Table 10.4). A case of internal corruption, in which the police sergeant offers a police officer to have holiday off if he runs errands for the supervisor (scenario 5), was evaluated as the corruption case of intermediate seriousness.

In accordance with the use of force continuum, the scenario describing verbal abuse of a citizen (scenario 7) was evaluated as the least serious form of the use of excessive force in the questionnaire (Table 10.4). Hitting a prisoner (scenario 6) or failing to stop the beating (scenario 11) were evaluated as more serious. However, the surprising finding is that use of deadly force, the most serious force on the use of force continuum, is not uniformly evaluated as the most serious of the use of excessive force scenarios (Table 10.4). In fact, abusing deadly force (scenario 4) was evaluated as less serious than failing to stop the beating (scenario 11).

There were also two scenarios in the questionnaire describing other forms of police misconduct, namely falsifying the official record (scenario 10) and failing to exercise an arrest warrant (scenario 2). Both of these scenarios were evaluated to be on the serious side (mean values between 3 and 4).

A comparison of the respondents’ own estimates of seriousness and how serious they estimated that other police officers in the agency would evaluate the same scenarios revealed several findings. First, the mean values of the respondents’ own estimates of seriousness and others’ estimates of seriousness were very similar in all 11 scenarios; the largest difference was only 0.10 in scenario 9 (auto body shop 5 % kickback). Second, the differences between the means measuring own estimates of seriousness and the means measuring others’ estimates of seriousness were statistically significant in only 2 out of 11 scenarios (Table 10.4), but they were not large and meaningful (above the 0.50)⁶ in any of the scenarios. Third, the relative order of the scenarios, measured through the ranking of the scenarios, suggests that police officers followed the same internal order of seriousness, regardless of whether they expressed their own evaluations or whether they estimated how other police officers would evaluate the scenarios. The Spearman’s correlation of the ranking of the respondents’ own estimates of seriousness and the ranking of others’ estimates of seriousness was very high (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 0.964, p < 0.001), suggesting an extremely strong connection between the two measures.

Violation of Official Rules

The respondents were asked to assess whether the behavior described in the scenario violates the official rules in their police agencies. The possible answers ranged on a scale from 1 = “definitely not” to 5 = “definitely yes.” The respondents’ assessments of whether the described behaviors violate the official rules varied greatly across the scenarios (Table 10.4). The mean values for four scenarios (scenario 1”: free meals, gifts from merchants; scenario 7: verbal abuse –“Arrest an Asshole Day,” Scenario 8: cover-up of police DUI accident; scenario 9: auto body shop 5 % kickback; Table 10.4) were below the midpoint of the scale (i.e., 3), suggesting that the respondents hesitated to label these behaviors as rule violating. To eliminate the possibility that a few outliers are affecting the mean value, we also analyzed the percentages of police officers who said that these behaviors violate official rules⁷ (Table 10.4). The results show that the overwhelming majority of the officers did not think that such behaviors violated official rules. In fact, less than one quarter of the respondents confirmed that these behaviors indeed are violations of official rules . At the same time, all four scenarios describe the behaviors evaluated as the least serious in the questionnaire.

Another group of scenarios had mean values between 3 and 4 (scenario 2: failure to arrest friend with warrant; scenario 4: unjustifiable use of deadly force; scenario 5: supervisor offers holiday for errands; scenario 6: officer strikes prisoner who hurts partner; scenario 10: false report on drug on dealer; scenario 11: Sgt. fails to halt beating), indicating that the respondents were more likely to evaluate them as rule violating. However, there is variation within this group; while only the minority of the respondents (45 %; Table 10.4) recognized internal corruption (scenario 5: supervisor offers holiday for errands) as rule violating, as many as two thirds (67 %; Table 10.4) recognized as rule violating the failure to exercise an arrest warrant (scenario 2: failure to arrest friend with warrant) and falsification of the official report (scenario 10: false report on drug on dealer). Some of the forms of misconduct included in this middle group include very serious examples of misconduct (e.g., failure to exercise an arrest warrant, falsifying the official report, abusing deadly force) and it is rather surprising that between one third and one half of the respondents did not recognize these behaviors as rule violating.

Finally, there was only one scenario (scenario 3: theft of knife from crime scene) in which the mean was above 4 and more than 90 % of the respondents recognized this behavior as rule violating. This scenario describes one of the most serious forms of police corruption, one in which a police officer steals from a crime scene. The overwhelming majority of the respondents had no problems recognizing it as a violation of official rules.

The respondents’ evaluations of whether the behavior violates official rules are very strongly associated with how serious they evaluated these behaviors. The two sets of rankings (own seriousness ranking and ranking of rule violating) are very similar, resulting in a high correlation (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 0.964, p < 0.001). The more serious the respondents’ evaluated the behavior, the most likely they were to say that the behavior violates official rules.

Appropriate and Expected Discipline

The next two questions in the questionnaire focused on the views about the appropriate and expected discipline. The respondents were asked to express their views about the appropriate discipline for the behaviors described in the questionnaire, as well as to estimate what discipline their agency would mete out for such ­behavior. Possible answers included: “no discipline,” “verbal reprimand ,” “written reprimand,” “period of suspension without pay,” “demotion in rank,” and “dismissal.”

The respondents’ views about the appropriate and expected discipline were ­analyzed using three analytical approaches. First, based on modal values, the respondents thought only mild discipline should be appropriate (typically “verbal reprimand”) and that dismissal is not appropriate for any of behaviors described in the scenarios (Table 10.5). In fact, the respondents supported verbal reprimand as the appropriate discipline for the overwhelming majority of the scenarios (in 9 out of 11 scenarios; Table 10.5). Only in the scenario describing theft from a crime scene (scenario 3: theft of knife from crime scene) did they express that only a somewhat harsher discipline, such as written reprimand, would be appropriate. On the other hand, the respondents thought that no discipline should be given to the police officer who accepted free meals and gifts from merchants (scenario 1).

Table 10.5 Views about appropriate discipline (should) and expected discipline (would)

Second, the analysis of the percentages of respondents who selected either no discipline, some discipline other than dismissal, and dismissal led toward similar conclusions (i.e., the majority preferred no discipline in only one scenario, the majority expected dismissal in only one scenario; in 9 out of 11 scenarios, the majority expected some discipline, but more lenient than dismissal). It also revealed that views are more complex than the modal analysis would suggest. In particular, just like the modal analysis revealed, the percentage analysis implies that majority of the respondents thought that no discipline was appropriate in only one scenario (scenario 1: free meals, gifts from merchants). In addition, there was also a substantial minority of the respondents—between 30 and 40 %—who thought that the police officer should not be disciplined for engaging in the behaviors described in three additional scenarios (scenario 7: verbal abuse – “Arrest an Asshole Day”; scenario 8: cover-up of police DUI accident; scenario 9: auto body shop 5 % kickback; Table 10.5). Similarly, while there is only one scenario (scenario 3: theft of knife from crime scene) in which the majority of the respondents thought that dismissal was appropriate, there were three more scenarios (scenario 2: failure to arrest friend with warrant; scenario 10: false report on drug on dealer; scenario 11: Sgt. fails to halt beating) in which between 20 and 30 % of the respondents advocated for dismissal.

Third, the scenarios were ranked based on the modal appropriate discipline for each scenario (Table 10.5). A comparison of the ranking of appropriate discipline with the ranking for own seriousness shows that they are correlated (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 0.674, p < 0.05). The more serious the respondents evaluated the scenarios, the more likely they were to advocate for the reliance on a harsher discipline. Similarly, a comparison of the ranking of appropriate discipline with the ranking for rule-violating behavior shows that the two are correlated (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 0.674, p < 0.05). The more likely the respondents were to evaluate the behavior as rule violating, the more likely they were to advocate for harsher discipline.

The respondents were also asked to assess what kind of discipline their agency would mete out for the behaviors described in the questionnaire. The analysis of the respondents’ modal responses indicated that, in most of the scenarios, respondents expected only “verbal reprimand” as the discipline that their police agency would mete out (Table 10.5). The only scenario in which they expected more serious discipline than “verbal reprimand” was the scenario describing theft from a crime scene (scenario 3). On the other hand, they expected no discipline in the case of a police officer who accepted free meals and gifts from merchants (scenario 1). The analysis of percentages of respondents who expected no discipline at all, some discipline more lenient than dismissal, and dismissal yielded similar conclusions. In addition, the percentage analysis also brought to the attention the existence of strong minority views (e.g., a strong minority of the respondents expected no discipline in scenario 7: verbal abuse – “arrest an asshole day”; scenario 8: cover-up of police DUI accident; scenario 9: auto body shop 5 % kickback; a strong minority of the respondents expected dismissal in scenario 2: failure to arrest friend with warrant; scenario 10: false report on drug dealer). Finally, the respondents’ views of the expected discipline were correlated with their estimates of misconduct seriousness (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 0.674, p < 0.05) and estimates of rule violation (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 0. 674, p < 0.05).

The respondents’ views of the expected discipline were very similar to their views of the appropriate discipline. First, there was a very strong correlation between the ranking of the respondents’ views of the appropriate discipline and the ranking of the respondents’ estimates of the expected discipline (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 1.00). Second, the modal values of appropriate discipline and expected discipline were virtually identical for all 11 scenarios. Third, the analysis of percentages across the three categories of discipline suggests that the views about appropriate and expected discipline were quite similar⁸ (Table 10.5).

Willingness to Report Misconduct

The last two questions focused on the code of silence. In particular, the respondents were asked how willing they would be to report misconduct and to estimate how willing other officers in their agencies would be to do the same. The answers ranged on a five-point Likert scale from “definitely not” to “definitely yes.”

The analysis of the mean values for the respondents’ own willingness to report shows very clearly that the code of silence is far from a flat prohibition of reporting (Table 10.6). The respondents’ willingness to report is positively related to their evaluations of scenario seriousness (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 0.934, p < 0.001), perceptions that the behavior violates the rules (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 0.929, p < 0.001), and severity of the appropriate discipline (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 0.676, p < 0.05). The mean values ranged from as low as 1.26 for the scenario describing acceptance of gratuities (scenario 1) to as high as 4.27 for the scenario describing theft from a crime scene (scenario 3). Based on the mean values, scenarios could be classified into three categories (Table 10.6).

Table 10.6 Police officer perceptions of willingness to report

First, six scenarios (scenario 1: free meals, gifts from merchants; scenario 5: supervisor offers holiday for errands; scenario 6: officer strikes prisoner who hurts partner; scenario 7: verbal abuse – “arrest an asshole day”; scenario 8:” cover-up of police DUI accident; scenario 9: auto body shop 5 % kickback; Table 10.6) have means below 3 (the midpoint of the scale), suggesting that the respondents would be unwilling to report such behaviors and that the code of silence would cover them. However, even within this group, the respondents were more likely to stick to the code of silence for the behaviors they evaluated as the least serious (i.e., scenario 1: free meals, gifts from merchants; scenario 7: verbal abuse—“Arrest an Asshole Day”; scenario 8: cover-up of police DUI accident) than for the other behaviors in this category (i.e., scenario 5: supervisor offers holiday for errands; scenario 6: officer strikes prisoner who hurts partner; scenario 9: auto body shop 5 % kickback). These behaviors describe the least serious forms of police corruption, such as acceptance of gratuities (scenario 1: free meals, gifts from merchants) and internal corruption (scenario 8: cover-up of police DUI accident), as well as the least serious forms of misconduct related to the use of force continuum (scenario 7: verbal abuse – “arrest an asshole day”). On the other hand, the code seems to be somewhat weaker (but still very strong) for the more serious forms of police corruption, such as the kickback (scenario 9: auto body shop 5 % kickback) and the use of excessive force (scenario 6: officer strikes prisoner who hurts partner).

Second, there are four scenarios (scenario 2: failure to arrest friend with warrant; scenario 4: unjustifiable use of deadly force; scenario 10: false report on drug on dealer; scenario 11: Sgt. fails to halt beating) with the means between 3 (the middle point) and 4 (Table 10.6). In these scenarios, the mean values are crossing into the reporting side of the scale, suggesting that the respondents would be less likely to tolerate such behaviors without reporting them. Most of these scenarios involve very serious forms of the use of excessive force (scenario 4: unjustifiable use of deadly force; scenario 11: Sgt. fails to halt beating) or other forms of misconduct (scenario 2: failure to arrest friend with warrant; scenario 10: false report on drug on dealer). However, even for such serious forms of police misconduct , there is a substantial proportion of the respondents who would protect such behavior without reporting it.

Third, there is only one scenario (scenario 3: theft of knife from crime scene) in which the mean value is above 4, thus suggesting that the respondents would be much less likely to tolerate such behavior in silence. This scenario (scenario 3: theft of knife from crime scene) describes one of the most serious forms of corruption. It has been evaluated as the most serious scenario in the questionnaire, the scenario most likely to be evaluated as rule violating (over 90 % of the respondents recognized it as rule violating), and the only scenario in which the majority of the respondents expected dismissal. Therefore, it is not surprising that it is also the scenario in which the respondents were least likely to say that they would protect such behavior without reporting it.

The respondents’ views of their own willingness to report were also compared with their estimates of the other officers’ willingness to report (Table 10.6). Although the views are highly correlated (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = 0.982, p < 0.001), the mean values show a remarkable finding: The respondents expected that other police officers would be much more likely to protect such behavior in silence than the respondents themselves would. In fact, the respondents expected that their fellow officers would not be willing to report the behavior described in any of the 11 scenarios (the mean values for the others’ willingness to report are all below the midpoint of the scale; Table 10.6). The differences between the respondents’ own willingness to report and the others’ willingness to report are not only statistically significant, but also substantively important⁹ in ten scenarios. In fact, these differences tended to be unusually large in some scenarios. For example, in three scenarios (scenario 3: theft of knife from crime scene; scenario 4: unjustifiable use of deadly force; scenario 10: false report on drug on dealer), evaluated as some of the most serious scenarios, they were larger than two points on the scale from 1 to 5 (see Table 10.6).

Conclusion

The story of the Thai Royal Police (TRP) illustrates the importance of the role that the society, at large, plays in shaping the ethical behavior of police officers. Scholars (e.g., Phongpaichit and Piriyarangsan 1996) described the long history of corruption in the Thai society, from the ancient Thai system Sakdina, in which government officers were legally allowed to accept gifts or money from citizens, to the modern times, in which bribe taking is still an acceptable practice (e.g., Ariyabuddhiphongs and Hongladarom 2014). These scholarly descriptions suggest that police corruption is highly organized (e.g., syndicate corruption; Phongpaichat et al. 1991), affecting many ranks within a police agency. On the other hand, the “tradition” of military coups as an acceptable way of obtaining power, without any negative consequences, and the encouragement of the police to engage in the war on drugs, without a concern for human rights violations, create the impression that the use of (excessive) force is tolerated as well.

The results of our empirical study should be analyzed with a larger context in mind. Of the various forms of misconduct included in the questionnaire—ranging from acceptance of gratuities and verbal abuse to use of deadly force, kickbacks, and thefts—the respondents evaluated only theft from a crime scene as a truly serious example of misconduct and were certain that it violates official rules. There were a few other examples of misbehaviors (e.g., failure to exercise an arrest warrant, falsifying an official report) in which most of the officers perceived that the behavior is serious and that it violates official rules, but, as a norm, most of the behaviors in the questionnaire were neither evaluated as very serious nor viewed as severe violations of the official rules—nor perceived as deserving harsh discipline. Such findings should not be surprising in a society in which corruption seems to be a part of the cultural tradition and force is used regularly to overthrow governments.

The results also show that the code of silence is present among the respondents and that it does not cover all behaviors equally. The degree to which the respondents’ own willingness to report and the estimates of others’ willingness to report differ is no less than remarkable. One potential explanation is that the respondents do not have a good perception about the extent of the code and that they are misled into believing that the code is much stronger than it really is. If that is the case, the police administration faces a substantial challenge in teaching the officers what the code really looks like. An alternative explanation is that police officers asked to participate in the study have much higher levels of police integrity than the average police officers. This might have been the case for some of the respondents, particularly those surveyed, while taking a course for the future chiefs of police stations. However, this should not have been the case for the majority of the police officers surveyed in their respective police stations. The code of silence is one area in which the police administrators, who are presumably interested in controlling misconduct, could make substantial strides toward addressing it.