Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Governing Work through Crime: Hello Kitty

American models of crime control have a way of being transferred around the world. In the 1990s, Phoenix, Arizona's publicity hungry sheriff Joe Arpaio (read his Wikipedia entry), who likes to be known as "America's toughest sheriff," started making his inmates where pink underwear. Now according to an article by Seth Mydans in the New York Times, the Bangkok police department has introduced a new disciplinary rule that will force police officers who show up late, or break other department rules, to wear a pink "Hello Kitty" arm band over their uniforms.

Sure enough, Pongpat Chayaphan, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division, who introduced the new management method, trained with the American Secret Service and says he "he wants to modernize his force."

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