Hello Kitty, Meet Dante Aligheri

From ABC News via Above the Law: Thai Cops to wear "Hello Kitty" armbands as punishment.

"Simple warnings 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.

"(Hello) Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It's not something macho police officers want covering their biceps," Pongpat said.

Hmm, ok. So how does one earn a pink armband?

Police officers caught littering, parking in a prohibited area, or arriving late among other misdemeanors will be forced to stay in the division office and wear the armband all day, said Police Col. Pongpat Chayaphan. The officers won't wear the armband in public.

(1) The officers won't wear it in public? That's a cop-out (hA!). (2) Can't we be more creative than a Hello Kitty armband? If Dante Aligheri, author of The Divine Comedy, were the new police discipline director in Thailand, he'd have much better ideas.

If the officers are littering, put a Nerf-style basketball hoop over their head that the public can throw trash into on the street. If the officers park illegally, make them carry the car around on their back for a day to show them how big a pain in the ass it is to deal with a misplaced car. If they arrive late, force them to undergo lengthy and invasive medical testing by Thai high school biology students to try to find out why they're so lazy and insolent. Hello Kitty, while amusing, should only be the first step to cure Thai police misconduct through comedic contrapasso.