Pickpocket in Thailand

Members :
Sasiwan Ekakkaravichit
Thanapond Namnanthasith
Pattipath Inmanee
BoonyanuchNiyompornkul
Thanvarat Jamnongnoravut
Wanvisa Pheadphong

Pickpocket is one of the most common crime and major concern in

Thailand which became to the national issue. The consequences of robbing not
only affect the rate and reputation of tourism in the country, but also impact on
the economy since the tourism industry is the main income of Thailand.
Thailand considers pickpocket as one of the nationals concern since a lot of the
stealing cases are committed by foreigners not just Thai people. It has been
reporting that many of the pickpocket cases occuring in Thailand are committed
by Burmese, Lao, and Cambodian people. The notorious news in Thailand is
crimical which including pickpocket. Even though Bangkok is excluded in the
list of the top ten cities that is worst for pickpocketing, there are a lot of blogs
and websites talking about muggers in Thailand; the contents of the weblogs are
advising the tips to avoid pickpocket in Thailand, and talking about the
experience of criminal. Pickpocket also affects Thailand in many other ways.
Apprehending to the robber, tourists is not only one groups who concerning but
Thais also confront with this problem.

Our predictions on the target group toward this concerning issue are the
awareness and the experiences they have about pickpoket. The major prediction
is the awareness of pickpoket due to the fact that pickpocket is a very common
and accustom criminal in Thailland, so we are expected to see those and gather
information from the survey. Moreover, the target for surveying is people
experiencing with robbery by themselves or someone close to them. Apart from
collecting datas from the survey, we did a research and analysis on the internet
about the problems that could be identified. According from the research we
have found that the victims of pickpocketing are not specific in any groups or
ages. However, majority of the sufferers from illegal stealing are mostly
tourists, both Thais and foreigners but there is more number of Thais than
foreigers. Pickpocketing occurs with all ages and groups who go out of the
home to the public without enough vigilance for their belongings or any people
who are negligent to others in public. Sometimes craftiness of cutpurse which
hard for others to perceive is one of the cause of the problems.

Before we started interview and collect data from the group, we did a
research on the problems and crimes that Thai people are facing. After doing
enough research we have noticed that the majority of Thai people are scared as
well as having an experinced of pickpocket. So, we came up with an idea of
making a survey based on this issue. However, before making an official survey,
we have discussed and listed the factors that are necessary to make our survey
easy to access. Fortunately, we did an online survey due to its convenient and
easy to collect information and surveys opinion on the pickpocket.

As the world are full of new advance inovations and technologies, we

decided to make a favorable and simple survey in order to run the process
smoothly by making an online survey from the Google form which allows
surverys to do it on their phones and computers spending a very small amount
of time. This process are done by sending the survey link to our target
customers through social media, such as facebook or line, and as the result the
number of the people who do the survey are much higher than the number we
expected. After collecting enough information, we will eventually analyze the
data and see the real opinion of each individual who did a survey. We made the
total of seven questions on the survey. The questions included the general
information of the person who took survey, experience of pickpockets, and the
opinion of robbery in Thailand. These are the question we had made:
-What is your gender?
-How old are you?
-Have you or people you know ever experienced pickpocket?
-Are you scared of pickpocket?
-Where do you think that pickpocket most happens in Bangkok?
-How high do you think is the risk of being pickpocketed in Bangkok?
-How do you think this issue can be solved?

The aggregate survey we received is 172 responds. We also included the

genders and the age groups into the survey too. We categorised the age groups
into 5 groups: 15 to 20, 21 to 30, 31 to 40, 41 to 50, and above 50 years old. The
highest percentage of our responds are from the youngest group which is 15-20
years old with the percentage pf 29.7%, and followed by 41-50 years old with
the percentage of 25%. Surprisingly, over 53% of the responders have
experienced pickpocketing both by themselves and by someone they know or
that are close to them, and about 75% of the responders are scared of
pickpocketing. We also let the responders rate the rate of how high the risk of
being pickpocketed in Bangkok is. The result comes out that most of the
responders rated 8 out of 10, followed by 7/10. Futhermore, only 26 responders
out of 172 responders rated the risk of being pickpocketed in Bangkok at the
rate of 1-4 out of 10. We also included the question about the location where
pickpocket occurs the most too. The result came out that the location where
pickpocket occurs the most in Sampeng, which is one of the most famous
markets in Thailand and especailly in Bangkok located near China town, with
the percentage of 33.1%, and followed by Water Gate with 19.8% and Roadside
with 17.4%. However, about 14% of the responders choose others and
suggested that pickpocketing occurs everywhere and anywhere that is crowded,
while some of the other suggestions are bus, train and many other public
transportation system and also other famous tourist attractions in Bangkok such
as the Victory of Monument and Chatuchuk Market; also known as JJ market.
For the last question, we asked the responders about how this issue can be
solved and majority of the responses are that we should all be more careful and
always be conscious all the time. Some of the responses also suggested not to
carry any wallet or purses to avoid being pickpocketed and some suggested to
enforce the law so that the criminal should be punished harder for the crime.

To be concluded, the collected data shows that the problems that our
target group have are most of them are scared of pickpockets in Thailand
especially in the public place, more than half of our target group have
experienced in pickpockets, and scared of pickpockets, which makes people
scared as well as being inconvenience in their daily life. Therefore, it is our
opportunity to solve the problems by providing the product or service that can
make people feel safe and decrease the risk of pickpockets in the public place.