The Royal Thai Police (RTP) never run short of controversy. The latest scandal concerns the swift rise of a former beauty pageant contestant, who went from a police lance corporal to a police captain in less than two years.
Her case -- first reported last week -- raises questions about the RTP's admission policy for a 17-week course to train civilians who qualify to become commissioned officers.
The course was created almost a decade ago for the RTP to recruit more specialists, such as medical personnel, accountants, computer experts, and designers, to take roles in the force. Civilians must be qualified and pass an exam before doing the course.
The course has a special quota admission policy for children of police who died on duty and medalled national athletes.
But the training course is criticised as a shortcut for rich kids from well-heeled families.
Such claims have gained ground with whistleblower Chuvit Kamolvisit on Monday posting images of a female police officer during her free time posing in front of her Lamborghini supercar. One viral clip shows this same police officer partying in her free time, throwing a lot of banknotes down onto a dance floor at a swanky pub in the Sukhumvit area.
But there's a bigger and more sinister issue to worry about. It is understood that some of those admitted to the course and are now police officers have links with underground businesses such as online gambling or even money laundering.
It begs the question, does the RTP have an effective background check process?
Yesterday Pol Maj Gen Yingyos Thepjamnong, a spokesperson for the police force, reportedly admitted that the admission process has loopholes.
"This training course is not a problem per se. The real issue is that a group of recruited personnel are admitted in response to special orders from departments and divisions," Pol Maj Gen Yingyos said.
He admitted RTP could not trace nor confirm whether these recruited personnel perform their duties or work in the positions they applied for.
National police chief Pol Gen Damrongsak Kittiprapas cannot be idle or treat this case as an individual issue.
Any doubtful cases and promotions must be re-evaluated.
The national police office must create a system to track down these recruited civilians working at designated positions and not being transferred to work in front of RTP bigwigs.
Above all, admission and recruitment must be fair, transparent and non-biased.
Pol Gen Damrongsak must run background checks to make sure recruited personnel have clean records, and for cases that have resulted in dubious admissions, those responsible for allowing them must be held accountable.
This issue is not about rich police personnel showing off their vanity. Without safeguards and a good filtering system, this special admission process will only lead to position buying. The worst thing is that criminal networks could easily use this policy to plant moles at the RTP.
Make no mistake, recruiting civilians and this 17-week course are still necessary as the RTP still needs to develop and diversify the capacity of its workforce. But to make the most out of it, the recruitment process, first and foremost, must be transparent and fair.
