After a police officer at a local police station located at Rayong, Thailand south of Bangkok was reported as having raped a Lao woman being held under detention, the chief of the station had formed a committee to investigate the officer.
On 14 December 2015, as the accused officer was brought to see the station chief in his office, the officer suddenly drew his gun and fired at the chief of police. The bullet hit the chief's neck and killed him instantly. He then shot another officer at work in the office and killed him.
As he ran to his pickup truck to escape, the officer managed to fire another 10 more shots but was finally shot dead. The officer had reportedly been severely stressed after being told he faced a disciplinary investigation (See "Accused rapist cop kills 2 fellow officers in Rayong," Jumphol Nikomruk, Bangkok Post, 14 Dec 2015 here).
Sexual misconduct is one of five major forms of police misconduct that have been identified from sociological studies, independent commission reports and court cases in the US (Ivkovic, 2015, 1), (the other four forms of police misconduct being use of excessive force, racial profiling, perjury and generalized police corruption).
POLICE MISCONDUCT: DIFFICULTY OF ROOTING OUT
Getting rid of police misconduct can be a difficult process, as the above incident attests to.
First, a universal so-called police "code of silence" works to conceal misconduct "with police officers fearing ostracism from their colleagues if they reveal anything about the misconduct of their fellow officers or fearing disciplinary and/or criminal consequences if their own misconduct is uncovered." (Ivkovic, 2015, 2).
In what amounts to a cautionary tale for whistleblowers, the highway patrol officer said to be responsible for the first video clips of police bribery broadcast on TV in Thailand (Pol. Sen Sgt. Maj. Chit Thongchit) in 2003, was allegedly forced to resign from the police force and then allegedly assassinated by fellow police officers in 2009 (Ivkovic, 2015, 276) citing sources here, here and here.
The police officer had singlehandedly fought against police corruption and had exposed many police officers for police misconduct, he also had "filed a complaint about police in Prachuap Khiri Khan who had charged an innocent man with selling methamphetamine pills. This resulted in several senior and junior policemen being moved from the province. ... The death of the policeman ... gained a lot of media coverage due to his unrelenting fight against corruption. A native of Bangkok, Chit gained a reputation for being an honest cop when his team on a special assignment arrested policemen involved in cigarette smuggling in Khao Yoi district, Phetchaburi..." (from "Caught in the crossfire of love and hate," Bangkok Post, 2 Feb 2009 here).
POLICE MISCONDUCT: AN ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEM
This transient success and ultimate failure of a single "good cop" in weeding out "bad cops" highlights a key finding of researchers working in the area of police reform, that police misconduct is an organizational problem and not a problem of single isolated "bad cops" (bad apples, rotten apples), nor is it the actions of single "good cops" that can ultimately reduce and eliminate police misconduct.
Blaming the problem on a few "bad apples" is really a refusal to admit and accept that the problem exists in the first place.
Police misconduct is an organizational problem that needs an organizational solution.
POLICE INTEGRITY: A MORE POSITIVE CONCEPT
The goal of police reform is the reduction and elimination of police corruption and misconduct.
However, the direct study of police misconduct is very difficult, if not impossible, because police refuse to talk about misconduct among their own ranks with outsiders.
The complement or inverse of police misconduct, police integrity is a more positive concept that police are willing to talk about and can provide a more solid basis for police reform.
Police integrity is defined as "the normative inclination among police to resist temptations to abuse the rights and privileges of their occupation" (Ivkovic, 2015, 3).
Surveys featuring scenarios in which police officers are subject to these temptations have been presented to the police forces of different countries and to different units working in the same police force and significant differences in "police integrity" have been found across forces and units (see overview here as well as Johnson (2003); Seksan Khruakham & Joongyeup Lee, (2013); Narin Phetthong & Anja Kutnjak Ivkovic (2015))
ROAD TO POLICE REFORM & POLICE INTEGRITY
The road to police integrity according an organizational theory of police misconduct involves working on four dimensions:
1. Organizational rules and enforcement of those rules.
2. Techniques for controlling police misconduct including reactive investigations of misconduct based on complaints and discipline of police officers who violated rules as well as proactive investigations, education and integrity testing.
3. Curtailing the police code of silence.
4. Acknowledging that the social, economic and political environment surrounding police work influences the level of police integrity.
Hong Kong's police force perhaps stands as the best example of a police force that has implemented such an organizationally-based program of police reform.
Citizen oversight has been key to Hong Kong's success and an ever diminishing record of police misconduct incidents (see Hui, 2015).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hui, D. L. H. (2015). "Hong Kong: Police corruption and reforms." In K. R. Hope (Ed.), Police corruption and police reforms in developing societies (pp. 143-156). Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Ivkovic, Sanja Kutnjak (2015) "Studying police integrity" in Measuring police integrity across the world: studies from established democracies and countries in transition. Ivkovic, Sanja Kutnjak (ed) and Haberfeld, M R (ed). New York: Springer Publishing.
Johnson, David T. (2003) "Above the Law? Police Integrity in Japan". Social Science Japan Journal (SSJJ) 6(1): 19-37.
Narin Phetthong & Anja Kutnjak Ivkovic (2015) "Police integrity in Thailand". in Measuring police integrity across the world: studies from established democracies and countries in transition. Ivkovic, Sanja Kutnjak (ed) and Haberfeld, M R (ed). New York: Springer Publishing.
Seksan Khruakham & Joongyeup Lee (2013). "Cross-Nation Comparison of the Intolerance to Police Misconduct: Findings from a Thai Police Cadet Survey". International Journal of Police Science & Management. September vol. 15 no. 3 237-245.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/archive/caught-in-the-crossfire-of-love-and-hate/10879
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/crime/794324/accused-rapist-cop-kills-2-fellow-officers-in-rayong
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