Criminal justice officials’ attitudes towards addressing computer crimes in Thailand: Difficulties and recommendations

Abstract

For the past 10 years, Thailand has been one of the top 10 countries targeted by cyber criminals. In order to address this pressing issue of computer and cybercrime, Thailand enacted the Computer Crime Act (Version 2) of 2017 to better reflect the changing nature and types of computer crime and created the CyberCrime Investigation Bureau to be directly responsible for such crime. Very little empirical research has been conducted in Thailand on this topic. The data in this study are from in-depth interviews of 20 experts and two focus groups of 20 experts each. The data from the interviews and the first focus group focused on the obstacles facing computer crime officials in dealing with computer crime. The second focus group discussed and analyzed the findings and then offered recommendations for future police policies and practices. The recommendations address not only the main obstacles found in the five main areas of police policies (international cooperation, law enforcement officials, victims, technology, and legal aspects), but also offer proactive police practices to be considered, such as human rights violation precautions and police recruitment and career paths for computer crime personnel.