Phuket named least corrupt police force in Thailand: Everyone laughs

How these sorts of things are even determined is beyond me. If you live here for a while you have a tendency to just assume that everything the government tells you is a lie because it is so often the case. When this news was released a few days ago that determined that Phuket had the least corrupt police force in all of Thailand, anyone who has ever lived in or even been to Phuket had a real laugh about it.

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While I do not know for sure, I would imagine that the quantifying of who is the least corrupt would be provided by the police forces themselves and well, we can't really count on that as a measuring stick if the police are corrupt, and everyone knows that the police are corrupt everywhere in Thailand. It is just a part of life.

Many of us prefer this type of policing over the kind that exists in the west where you are worried any time a police cruiser is near you on the road because if they want to give you a ticket they are going to find a way to do so. Once when I was a teenager I was given an $80 ticket because I didn't have my headlights on when it was raining. It was daytime and it was one of those strange rainstorms that happens in broad daylight. I was unaware this was even a law.

In Thailand the same thing happens but the amount of money they take off of you is significantly smaller so the population tolerates it. Some examples of obvious police corruption that is just from recent times that occurred in Phuket include the following.

• In a "raid" on the red-light district the police concluded that there is "no prostitution in Patong." Everyone knows that prostitution is literally everywhere in Patong. What this means is that the police went around and got a handout from all of the prozzie bars.
• When alcohol sales were banned for a time during one of the lockdowns, bars that were serving alcohol in plastic cups were not busted even though everyone knows there is no reason for these places to be open at all unless they are selling booze
• When the roadblock forbidding anyone from coming to or leaving the island of Phuket was established during the time when Phuket was trying out the "Sandbox" tourism project a lot of people, all of whom were wealthy came and went as they pleased. There is drone footage of this happening and when it came out on social media instead of busting the cops, the cops and government busted the people who made the post on social media
• in another instance where alcohol sales were banned for some reason the police press release said they checked 3,000 pubs and made 22 arrests. These numbers don't add up and I also don't think there are even 3000 pubs in all of Phuket. The number seems really high and there aren't enough police in Phuket to raid that many establishments in a day anyway.
• It is well-known in Phuket that you can ignore enforced closing times for your pub if you pay off the police - which many people do on a regular basis
• During the height of lockdown there were almost no businesses open. Yet there was a resort in the northern part of the island that was operating at full capacity and it was owned by a high-ranking police officer

Those are just the ones that I can come up with off the top of my head. I'm sure there are many more including the roadside checkpoints that happen so often that they have just become a part of life. If you go through one of these, especially if you are a foreigner, you can be all but guaranteed that you will be fined for something even if you aren't doing anything wrong.

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The website that I found the story on is the kind of site that showcases ridiculous things that the government does but presents it in a positive light. This is their way of getting around the unofficial rules that exist for the press in Thailand. All of their readers know that they are actually making fun of the situations but their reporters or journalists aren't really permitted to be critical of the government or they will get shut down. It doesn't mean the comment section can't be filled with what people really think though.

I just found it funny that a place that I go to on a regular basis and the corruption is evident and basically everywhere would be voted the least corrupt is something that the police would even bother trying to convince the public of....because we don't buy it.

If anything I think this is PR for Phuket since this is now a hotspot for tourism at the moment for international travelers.