Metropolitan police chief suspends project to catch traffic bribers

[Jonmarleesco]

Oh, dear. Perhaps Adul could publicly explain the difference - other than the size - between a bribe, and a bribe to refuse a bribe.

[hawker9000]

Let the traffic bribes continue. Nobody gives a <deleted> about a couple hundred baht changing hands. Thailand is so nearsighted that they think this is the problem with thailand. The REAL corruption is a lot higher up than traffic police.

Not just Thailand that's being nearsighted here...

Precisely the shortsightedness that gets Thailand in trouble again & again. Corruption is corruption, and you can't root it out at some one chosen level and leave it in place everywhere else. Besides, what do you think happens to all the tea money (and not just traffic fines, BTW) that street cops collect in the course of their daily duties? Are you under the impression that every satang remains in the hands of the cop who collects it, without tribute flowing uphill to those granting the promotions & transfers, overlooking indiscretions, bestowing favors, etc., etc., etc.?

[ray23]

Nincompoops. The Thai public may one day cease being to tolerant of such officials

Lets face it guys this is how Thai's are used to doing business, they like it this way. Or it would have been changed years ago. Every poll that they have ran says Thai's accept graft and it's OK. So we can take shots at them it's easy. We may not like it, just how it is.

[Equalizer]

peoples rights ??? I thought the people of Thailand deserve a Police force that is not corrupt, and this project was a step in the right direction. Perhaps this guy could see that his investment in buying his position could not supply the anticipated income he expected from bribes if this project proceeded. The NACC should have a look at this guys Assets and how he accumulated them

I agree this project was a step in the right direction however what has surprised me is the level of intelligence on this forum.

Handing money to police minus Arrest and fine equals no tea money

How is it a step in the right direction?

The right direction is that any attempt at bribery should result in arrest without the police expecting financial reward for doing so - it's simply bribery from the other direction and is a fundamentally flawed concept.

Offering officers a reward for doing their job inherently assumes that they are corruptable, and simply serves both to set a base negotiation rate of 10k baht, and to provide a new opportunity for extortion given that it is the officers word against the purported briber.

It's terribly misjudged and ill-considered.

As with most police forces around the world, I think the step that needs to be taken is independently auditable constant A/V monitoring of all officers on duty with the footage archived and court-admissable by legal teams of all parties.

It does not matter how ill considered it is. The fact remains it will work. The fact also remains that all the corruption is already a one way ticket as far as the road police are concerned. The system is flawed already. So to beat it no method will be flawless. I can tell you right now, if people start getting fined for paying tea money on the roads then naturally people will stop paying it. People will soon realize that they need to refuse the offer, take a ticket and pay the fine at the police station no matter how inconvenient it may be. This concept if implemented professionally would be a solution. You will never get the police to stop so the only alternative is to force the road users to stop. We are talking about minor road fines, the police will take 200bht the police station will take 400baht. The 400baht paid at the station gets documented and ends up in the central funds possibly making hundreds of millions if not billions of baht per year in extra revenue. Forget about the bribery, misjudges, ill considered and especially court-admissible rhetoric. If the police need a fair pay structure then fine, use the revenue to address this issue. It will take a year or two for both sides to come to terms with it but there are no other alternatives it will naturally happen. All it needs is simple technology, camera on the helmet linked to the control room that is overseen by an independent part of the force. The police will stop pulling people over for nothing because there are no financial gains to do so. Also the fact that every case with be settled at the station is not worth the paper work and contest. I know that sometimes reverse psychology can be hard to digest, i also know that what seems fair is not always the solution. One good example is how drink driving the the U.S fell dramatically when the authorities made bar owners just as responsible as the offending driver if proved he was drinking at your bar and you allowed him to drive away over the limit. Sound strange but boy it worked.

[Pib]

Well, according to a Bangkok Post 13 Oct 14/yesterday afternoon webpage afternoon article the Police Chief has thrown his support behind the program and "wants to expand it to work both ways to where the BIB get Bt10K for arresting someone attempting to bribe them and for a citizen to get Bt10K reward for reporting a BIB who accepts a bribe...but the citizen would need to file a police complaint. Police Chief hopes to raise Bt1M in donations to fund the program. Review the 13 Oct 14 Bangkok Post website for an article titled, Bribe reward to work both ways.

I'm so confused...first the reward is a go, then it's suspend, now it's back to having support. I must be in Thailand.

[NativeSon360]

[wilcopops]

So when you are stopped you need a camera. Dashboard or phone or whatever?

At some point you then have to establish if both the officer and yourself will turn booth cameras off....then ask if he is going for the 10k or will be happy with the 200 baht.

Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid

[Dogmatix]

As expected. The boys in brown will all want an exponential raise in salary. Catching two bad bribing motorists a day sounds fair enough... 20k wouldn't be too m

uch. would it?

They overlooked the beauty of the existing scheme which that the motorists pay the police themselves, so no need for a govt budget, accountability, tax etc.

Also if you scare motorists into not offering bribes and following road rules, you might never get the situation back to normal once the govt budget has been used up.

Edited October 15, 2014 by Dogmatix

[Pib]

As expected. The boys in brown will all want an exponential raise in salary. Catching two bad bribing motorists a day sounds fair enough... 20k wouldn't be too m

uch. would it?

They overlooked the beauty of the existing scheme which that the motorists pay the police themselves, so no need for a govt budget, accountability, tax etc.

Also if you scare motorists into not offering bribes and following road rules, you might never get the situation back to normal once the govt budget has been used up.

No, it not "...pay the police..."; it's "...donate to the police..." Donations are considered good and normal in Thailand....please continue that tradition.

[rwdrwdrwd]

peoples rights ??? I thought the people of Thailand deserve a Police force that is not corrupt, and this project was a step in the right direction. Perhaps this guy could see that his investment in buying his position could not supply the anticipated income he expected from bribes if this project proceeded. The NACC should have a look at this guys Assets and how he accumulated them

I agree this project was a step in the right direction however what has surprised me is the level of intelligence on this forum.

Handing money to police minus Arrest and fine equals no tea money

How is it a step in the right direction?

The right direction is that any attempt at bribery should result in arrest without the police expecting financial reward for doing so - it's simply bribery from the other direction and is a fundamentally flawed concept.

Offering officers a reward for doing their job inherently assumes that they are corruptable, and simply serves both to set a base negotiation rate of 10k baht, and to provide a new opportunity for extortion given that it is the officers word against the purported briber.

It's terribly misjudged and ill-considered.

As with most police forces around the world, I think the step that needs to be taken is independently auditable constant A/V monitoring of all officers on duty with the footage archived and court-admissable by legal teams of all parties.

It does not matter how ill considered it is. The fact remains it will work. The fact also remains that all the corruption is already a one way ticket as far as the road police are concerned. The system is flawed already. So to beat it no method will be flawless. I can tell you right now, if people start getting fined for paying tea money on the roads then naturally people will stop paying it. People will soon realize that they need to refuse the offer, take a ticket and pay the fine at the police station no matter how inconvenient it may be. This concept if implemented professionally would be a solution. You will never get the police to stop so the only alternative is to force the road users to stop. We are talking about minor road fines, the police will take 200bht the police station will take 400baht. The 400baht paid at the station gets documented and ends up in the central funds possibly making hundreds of millions if not billions of baht per year in extra revenue. Forget about the bribery, misjudges, ill considered and especially court-admissible rhetoric. If the police need a fair pay structure then fine, use the revenue to address this issue. It will take a year or two for both sides to come to terms with it but there are no other alternatives it will naturally happen. All it needs is simple technology, camera on the helmet linked to the control room that is overseen by an independent part of the force. The police will stop pulling people over for nothing because there are no financial gains to do so. Also the fact that every case with be settled at the station is not worth the paper work and contest. I know that sometimes reverse psychology can be hard to digest, i also know that what seems fair is not always the solution. One good example is how drink driving the the U.S fell dramatically when the authorities made bar owners just as responsible as the offending driver if proved he was drinking at your bar and you allowed him to drive away over the limit. Sound strange but boy it worked.

The flaw in the plain with the reward policy is that there is nothing in place to prevent the police claiming bribery was attempted when it wasn't in order to claim a reward. I note though that you also mention cameras in this response, which in conjunction with the reward system would circumvent that flaw - so long as it is effectively monitored. For effective monitoring though, I certainly think A/V data should be available to all parties, and that this aids removal of Police corruption (both on the street and on an organisational level) and supports valid prosecutions. To not have it available to courts / lawyers promotes collusion between officer on the street and 'independent' police employed camera analyst.

In short, for it to work it is essential that infrastructure exists to circumvent extortion, without accurate and accessable monitoring, it's impractical and highly abusable. Many steps need to be taken before announcing a blanket unverified reward system for officers simply claiming someone tried to bribe them.

Edited October 15, 2014 by rwdrwdrwd

[belg]

tea sellers were fearing of their dubious extra incomes

[Chao Lao Beach]

But no mention of cops demanding cash from you.

[wilcopops]

Seems to me that the police are shortly to be inundated with paperwork............motorists AND police will not be able to offer or receive bribes, so this must be for the better? Right?

Well not necessarily; if it is achieved this way there are inherent problems. Firstly it is going to instil a mutual mistrust between motorist and police. Secondly there will be misunderstandings as motorist turn on the dash-cams and phones as the police approach, then most motorist will have to refuse any roadside solution and elect to go to the station or wherever the fines are being paid.....or dispute the fine..........now I'm willing to bet that the average local police force has made no provision whatsoever for the massive amount of paperwork that this is going to entail......i doubt if they even low how to do it.

So......either the new idea will collapse or there will be a new kind of "paperwork" tea-money system devised.

i think one thing we CAN be sure of though, is that it will completely and utterly fail to stop corruption.