peperobi

I think people who volunteer to help should be congratulated and not just a target for ridicule - which is most likely due to envy by the way.

Great! But important is that they realize that they are not police officer....

I was at a meeting a few weeks ago organised by the Tourist Police to explain their function and that of the Volunteers. I met half a dozen of the Volunteers, some of whom I knew previously. They admitted that when the scheme was first started they did get a number of people joining for the wrong reasons, but they were soon weeded out. The Tourist Police should have a complement of 22 but only have (or had then) 10 and they had 12 Volunteers. The Volunteers have no powers of arrest and are there purely to assist ANY foreigner on the island including residents if called upon. They are understaffed and therefore the ability to man the office on the Lake Road full time is not easy.

The other issue that was raised was that the 1155 emergency number currently only connects to the Tourist Police in Bangkok and they are trying to get that changed - but even the Police can have problems with beurocracy here. The number to use is 077 414 198.

They do serve a useful purpose and speak a multitude of languages which for tourists in particular is somewhat comforting conversing in their own language rather than being misunderstood by the Thai Police.

Give credit where credit is due. Some of these people have full time jobs as well and give up part of their free time to put something back to the island.

The idea was very good, the biggest problem is that nobody from the tourist police take the responsability for this squad.

I personally believe that in principal Tourist volunteers are a good idea,The tag police is misleading and open to abuse.

My largest concern is the lack of vetting procedure,I know of one such volunteer that has a criminal resume fagan would be proud of,he has served time for some crimes run away from others.

People in Thailand (expats) trusted him due to his charm uniform and position he has since conned a few and is now wanted by the BIB.

Im aware that always you will find bad people in any group, but for this position surely the BIB should check at least with embassy of applicant.

Right! then I know about few people here that leaving ther contry because they do some criminal business there...

As I understand it, these volunteers are generally there to provide help for tourists, something I think we can all agree is necessary.

Whether or not there are bad apples in the bunch hardly justifies tainting every single person who chooses to volunteer as some jackbooted gestapo out to throw their weight around. Some people do actually want to help others.

Just a thought.

You are right I leave the police because some of my collegues enjoy to play sheriff and here in Samui can be quite dangeros. no one thai will accept that some farang give some advice to them.

Thank you.

So, I'll ask the proverbial question yet again in one of these threads.

Do the farang (or foreigner) police volunteers have the legally-required work permits or work permit exemption letters?

We've established they don't in Pattaya and Chiang Mai. What about Samui?

Yes/No the farang police volunteer have a WP if they are working some where, some of them do have a retirement visa but anymore nobody check it out.

For lunch, I went to macdonalds, in chaweng, from bophut where I live... I don't go to chaweng really often so I'm sure this subject has been discussed many times here, but that's the first time I noticed it:

On the way to chaweng road, we passed 5 or 6 tourist police officers... all faraangs !!! some had a black shirt saying "volunteer" in the back, some had a white shirt, and looked more like NSW cops (for those who know what i'm talking about)...

What are they really ? Are they entitled to stop me while I'm speeding - I mean driving - my car ? 'cause they don't look like they'd let me get away with a coupla red bills...

Anyway I was just wondering, because I was surprised to see a red haired faraang cop girl here... sorry if this subject has been discussed before.

Hi,

i'm a former tourist police volunteer.

The volunteer are only translator in uniform, so don't worry even some of them have a behauvior like a sheriff.

The most of them are people that geting boring because they have nothing to do.

For your information two picture that I toke on 24/10 in Chaweng