Profit sweeping initiative is at present underway on the Royal Thai Police (RTP) headquarters, set to clear practically 10 million harmless people from its criminal database. Deputy National Police Chief, Surachate “Big Joke” Hakparn, yesterday revealed at a press convention that RTP seeks to combine enhanced human rights ideas into its processes.
The initiative, grounded in the new fingerprint regulation introduced on April 27 and carried out on May 27, instructs the Criminal Records Division of the Office of Police Forensic Science to retain records strictly of convicted criminals. Fingerprints of the exonerated, people awaiting a verdict, and people sentenced to a month or less in prison or receiving suspended sentences, shall be eliminated from the system. Big Joke said…
“There are presently thirteen,079,324 fingerprint records in our criminal database, however with the improved regulation, only 3,708,359 criminal information will be stored. To the ten million plus individuals who by no means faced a conviction, we now have to be fair.”
The earlier protocol mandating that police request the removing of acquitted civilians’ names from the Criminal Records Division was closely criticised for its sluggish and ineffective nature.
According to Big Joke, the reformed regulation is a top-down policy that segregates the criminal data database into three distinct categories. First are felony suspects with unresolved circumstances – their data will remain confidential and may be accessed only for police investigations or civil service purposes. The second group comprises non-criminal offenders sentenced to lower than a month in jail, handed a suspended sentence or a fine, or who committed a legal offense because of negligence. These information shall be stored strictly for investigative uses..