Lifestyle audits: Casinos & drug deals at police headquarters

When you hear the facts of this police corruption case, it is simply hard to believe (see 07-01-2015 Bangkok Post article here).

A low-ranking police officer worked at provincial police headquarters in Chiang Rai in northern Thailand

The police officer managed to become a so-called "influential figure" (also known as "mafia leader" or "godfather" in other countries) right under the noses of the people he worked with.

The police officer ran two gambling casinos, apparently in Burma.

He ran through large amounts of money doing lord knows what (gambling? girls? fast cars? houses?) falling deeply into debt to the tune of 17 million baht.

The police officer then allegedly turned to drug dealing in order to get some quick money to clear his big debts.

But the fact that you could spend large amounts of money and run up massive debts and no one around you would notice seems quite unbelievable.

Perhaps people did see the police officer spending large amounts of money but kept their mouths shut, exercising the so-called "code of silence" of police forces worldwide in which police refuse to inform or blow the whistle on the police misconduct of fellow police officers.

ASSET DECLARATIONS & LIFESTYLE AUDITS 

There do exist worldwide best practices employed by exemplary police forces such as Hong Kong's to avoid and fight police corruption

These anti-police corruption measures include asset declarations and lifestyle audits.

The reasoning goes like this:

"Declarations of assets, property and liabilities together with lifestyle audits for even police officers low in the hierarchy could track unusual accumulations of wealth over the whole course of a career" (see here).

Why these measures to fight police corruption are not being used in Thailand is anyone's guess.

CODE OF SILENCE? 

Perhaps people did see the police officer spending large amounts of money but kept their mouths shut, exercising the so-called "code of silence" of police forces worldwide in which police refuse to inform or blow the whistle on the police misconduct of fellow police officers.

After a long period of surveillance by police, the police officer was finally caught selling large amounts of drugs this week (180,000 methamphetamine pills), arrested and an investigation was initiated to see how he obtained his assets.

This "investigation" happening only now raises a key point.

Knowledge about police officer assets should happen proactively before police misconduct occurs and should involve everyone at all levels of the organization.

PROACTIVE WHOLE ORGANIZATION POLICIES 

Police corruption and misconduct is an organizational problem.

To put an end to these problems, mechanisms to support police integrity at the level of the whole organization should be set up proactively to get organizational level solutions.

The "rotten apple" theory of police corruption that blames police misconduct on a few bad apples has been shown to be an ineffective way of defining and dealing with the problem (see here)

The police officer in this case was 17 million baht in debt, probably to informal money lenders, not banks, so there would be no formal record of the debts, so the police officer could have easily lied and falsified asset declarations, if these were required.

However, lifestyle audits would certainly reveal that something was happening.

And this gets at the fact that is almost unbelievable, that he did this at provincial police headquarters that oversees the police force for the whole province without anyone noticing.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia photo "ยาบ้า" by พีรพล อนุตรโสตถิ์ (journalist) here)