Yes, indeed, it is not, but coincidentally today a person was imprisoned for 50 years for being a little critical about the king of Thailand. 50 years! A young man! It clearly foreshadows this otherwise very good news.
Many people I know live considerable time of the year in Thailand and they are very supportive of the country but in my opinion this particular legislation clearly reminds that not everything is good there and there exists a considerable risk to personal freedom.
I think that we should be vocal about this and not accept it as a "local peculiarity" - voicing disagreement actually can change the world to a better place as silently accepting a wrongdoing clearly does not.
Similarly we should not close our eyes in case of US when it is gravitation toward less freedom. But this news is not about US.
I honestly don't know, but as more money would flow into the state and new jobs would be created then it certainly will affect the social dynamics in some form, possibly affecting also the issue you point out.
PS. If you can (e.g. you are an American) then please explain it to a non-American. I looked at the available statistics (deaths by police) and while the overall statics of Utah looks bad, there is also very small black population in Utah, meaning that even small level of serious criminal activity would easily skew the statics and indeed the number of killings by police is usually 1 in a year or even 0 as happened in 2016 and 2023 or 2013 and some extra bad year like 2018 will considerably affect the statistics.
So why is Utah notorious but for example Vermont or Oregon is not?
Of course to an European the number of people killed by police in US is simply mind blowing. But what is even more mind blowing is number of homicides, especially among young people, but (really) notoriously among black people. Close to 50% of homicide victims are black people but they only form 10% of the population.
Many people I know live considerable time of the year in Thailand and they are very supportive of the country but in my opinion this particular legislation clearly reminds that not everything is good there and there exists a considerable risk to personal freedom.
I think that we should be vocal about this and not accept it as a "local peculiarity" - voicing disagreement actually can change the world to a better place as silently accepting a wrongdoing clearly does not.
Similarly we should not close our eyes in case of US when it is gravitation toward less freedom. But this news is not about US.