Reshuffle fiasco reveals police force in urgent need of reform
Published: 06/10/2016 at 01:00 AM
Writer: JOHN DRAPER & PEERASIT KAMNUANSILPA
Newspaper section: News
Ill-advised centralisation of appointments failed to address crisis in Thai law enforcement
Delayed from October, the annual reshuffle of the Royal Thai Police (RTP) last month employed a new, centralised system of appointments. This resulted in 215 duplicated names, 270 duplicated appointments, one officer's demotion, one transfer of a dead policeman, and one appointment of an unqualified person. This means 6.2 per cent of the total 7,849 appointments were incorrect. Police reform has been attempted multiple times since 2001, including via the Police Reform Committee (PRC) of 2006-2007. Yet the main recommendations - devolution of management, transparency and community-oriented policing - fail to be heeded.
Political interference and nepotism within the RTP is rife, especially corruption in appointments, nominations, promotions and transfers, according to academic research involving interviews with PRC members, non-commissioned officers and station chiefs. In a misguided attempt to address this, the NCPO illegitimately applied Article 44 so that the reshuffle was implemented by the RTP's central administration office instead of at the bureau and division levels. Convinced that the reorganisation could only be trusted to a handful of officers because the process is normally so corrupt - a damning indictment in itself - national police chief Pol General Chakthip Chaijinda and a small team worked on the list for months. The resulting error rate would have led to a CEO's dismissal had it occurred in corporate accounting.
The reorganisation has been heavily criticised within and outside the force, including by Pol Lt-General Amnuay Nimmano, spokesman of the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) Law and Justice Committee and former chief of Provincial Police Region 1. In addition, Admiral Phajun Tamprateep, another NRSA member and former aide to Privy Council President General Prem Tinsulanonda, alleged position-buying in the police force earlier in the year, leading to the RTP pressing defamation charges against him.
While an internal police probe of the reorganisation has been launched, the investigation has been initiated by those responsible for it, highlighting the RTP's crisis of checks and balances.
The crux of the matter is that, according to research conducted by the RTP's own Cadet Academy in 2013, ""political self-interest, especially interference in personnel management within the RTP's annual round of appointments, nominations, transfers and promotions, allied to nepotism and position buying for anticipated rewards, represented the key drivers of police culture and also the key barriers to police reform in the Thai context"".
This means that, as with the reform of Australia's New South Wales (NSW) police, one of the most successful police reform programmes in history, an outsider may need to be brought in - not an impossibility given that King Rama IV appointed an Englishman to found the RTP.
The need for fundamental reform of the RTP has been widely recognised since the 1990s, including by prominent Thai academics and researchers such as Prof Pasuk Phongpaichit of Chulalongkorn University, who says that RTP stations often function as companies, supported by monthly raids or protection involving underground casinos, drug-selling rings and smuggling networks.
Prof Pasuk points out that the police are an integral part of the illegal economy and thus cost the state considerable sums in lost revenues every year. She notes news reports regularly detail the RTP's activities as ""importers and traders of amphetamines; shareholders in gambling enterprises; kingpins in human trafficking; and agents and entrepreneurs in the sex services trade"". Unfortunately, the lack of transparency or community involvement in the annual reshuffle mean that those who command these activities receive little external scrutiny.
Recommendations from academics, reform committees and the RTP itself suggest police reform is necessary at five levels.
First, junior policemen are poorly paid, to the extent they have to buy their own guns, meaning fee-gathering is built into the force as a form of survival.
Second is the nature of the hierarchy, which has too many senior police officers. The ratio of police to population in Thailand is reasonably high, at 344 per 100,000, compared to 195 in the US and 227 in the UK. Therefore, there are too many senior officers with too little for them to do, meaning they are more likely to seek alternative income streams. A flattened structure and the replacement of police with civilian positions could help.
Third is the centralised nature of the hierarchy, now exacerbated by the centralisation of the appointments system. The lack of transparency, even to the RTP itself, and lack of civilian oversight prevent any reforms in the direction of community-oriented policing.
The fourth problem highlighted by the reorganisation is the confusion over demotions and promotions. Transfer to rural areas of officers with good track records is seen as punitive demotion. Moreover, ""sideways"" transfers of poorly performing officers to ""Grade A"" (highly lucrative) stations due to the RTP's patronage system reflect a lack of governance and a failure to the community by providing immunity to corrupt officers.
Instead, what is needed is a root-and-branch investigation and reform, as promised by the NCPO, which should be led by a Royal Commission, probably the only way for a reform mechanism to achieve the necessary moral authority. What is especially perplexing in the reorganisation is that only one officer was demoted - and even that was admitted to be a mistake. If any serious attempt at reforming the RTP is to be undertaken, not just demotions but wide-ranging dismissals need to be implemented, as achieved by Australia's comprehensive NSW police reform programme.
The final obstacle to reform is illustrated by the fact that the RTP is investigating itself in the current probe. An Independent Complaints Committee, kick-started by a comprehensive Royal Commission, needs to be established, and the probe into the reorganisation should instead be managed by an independent agency, under the Justice Ministry. Finally, to enable administrative devolution, the RTP needs to stop being seen as the fourth branch of the military, since the Royal Thai Armed Forces, including Internal Security Operations Command and military intelligence, are already sufficient. This depowering would mean the RTP could finally become a professionalised service.
บทความเรื่อง Saving Thailand’s UN Security Council seat
"