So, police in Thailand have really come up with a winning strategy to keep junior officers from committing petty misdemeanors like littering. They’re gonna make offenders wear hot-pink arm bands with Hello Kitty cartoons on them. But only in the station in front of fellow officers who will accordingly point and laugh at them and their ridiculous arm bands. Not out in public, where the rest of the population could potentially point at them and laugh. (And then after they’re done pointing and laughing, I imagine they’d spit on the sidewalk and drop their empty styrofoam coffee cups in the street.)
Here’s the article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070806/ap_on_fe_st/odd_hello_kitty_cops
Here’s my favorite part:
“Simple warnings [to not commit petty crimes] no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor,” said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok.
(emphasis is mine)
I suspect that whoever thought up this brilliant idea clearly must have been educated in the United States public school system. Because, let’s face it, making kids feel guilt and shame throughout their entire educations is something that most public school teachers and administrators really excel at. I think it’s a required college course: Humiliation Tactics 101.
It amazes me that people remain so blind to the epidemic of bullying and humiliation in schools, and then from there it spreads into adult workplaces, the majority of which I’m sorry to say, are fraught with emotional dysfunction. We learn in school what the pecking order is, how to humiliate simply to avoid being humiliated, and then when we graduate we take what we learned into our adult lives, our professions, our families.
And STILL, when people find out that I homeschool, the very first concern they have continues to be: But how will my kids learn proper socialization?
Fucking morons, every one of them.
What the..?
I’m a little concerned about the idea that wearing a Hello Kitty armband instills more guilt and shame than committing petty crimes when you’re an officer.
And I’m concerned about officers being subjected to teasing instead of just getting a friggin ticket for what they did. Warnings don’t work, but I bet a fine would. They are petty CRIMES after all. What the hell?
Yes, I agree. Hitting them in the wallet would probably work much better. Unless they’ve tried that already and it turns out that humiliation is all they’ve got left. How sad is that?
And I sure hope they’re not thinking that a woman officer would be embarrassed. Me? I love Hello Kitty! I’d wear her on my arm with no problem.
I, too would wear Hello Kitty paraphernalia pretty happily…she always brightens my day. Think I’ll try it next week when I go to work after 10 weeks of maternity leave.
= )
Oh, I have another thought-what happens if you commit a more serious crime? Do you have to wear a diaper as a hat? Walk around with toilet paper trailing from your shoe? Are they taking suggestions on how to prevent crime there, because I could go on like this forever…and why limit it to the PD? Why not make offending citizens wear a giant hot dog costume (with their face visible) and greet people on the street as they enter a house of worship?
GO REGULAR MOM. I am sending my bullied harassed sister here to read right away! You are SO right on!
RegularSis…I’m LOL right now.
I think an effective deterrent might be forcing petty criminals to watch the Teletubbies or Barney or some other such show. The worse the crime, the more episodes. So for public spitting, you’d be sentenced to four episodes of Barney. And for assault it’d be the entire first three seasons of Barney followed by some Teletubby episodes, all while wearing a Teletubby suit and eating only tubby toast.
Katherine, I hope your sister is doing better? Hi Katherine’s Sister! Big waves and smiles to you!
I work in a public school. Just about to start my 4th year at the same facility. I homeschooled 10 years before that, so really didn’t need any encouragment to homeschool, but when I’m hosting the weekly chats in A to Z Home’s Cool, and we get people who are considering homeschooling, I have LOTS of stories to tell them.
And I work in a ‘good’ school, too. The staff does care about the kids, and they try to do a good job, but the bullying tactics they use to facilitate crowd control are the same in just about every school I’v ever seen.
So far, though, making kids wear Hello Kitty is something I haven’t seen done. If it works in Thailand, though, I can certainly see it happening in schools.