Searching for Police’s Best Practices in Violent Crime Reduction through Thailand’s Experience

Violent crimes have become one of the major challenges faced by Thailand amid its struggle to foster the country’s economic growth. One of the key instruments to help combat violent crimes is through improving the police’s capacity and performance. The primary objectives of the study are to examine the roles of the police in preventing and suppressing violent crimes according to the measures and policies currently enforced and to find out the obstacles and challenges in their operation, and by looking at the impact of the currently enforced measures and policies in the selected areas, in order to identify key success factors, and propose a best practices model for the operation of police forces in preventing and suppressing violent crimes. The study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods through examining documents, conducting in-depth interviews with senior police officers at the superintendent level, holding a focus group with police officers at the operational level, and conducting stakeholders’ satisfaction surveys, namely crime victims and general public in the areas. For the quantitative study to determine the levels of the stakeholders’ satisfaction, the Yamane formula is used to calculate the population size for the general public, and the purposive non-probability sampling is used to draw population from the crime victims. The study concludes by identifying key success factors in the operations of the selected police stations, among these are leadership of the superintendent, network-building with the civil society, and the technology, and presenting a model for best practices on the basis of these factors.