Policing In The Pacific Islands

This open access book brings together insights into Pacific policing, conceptualising policing broadly as order maintenance involving the actions of multiple local, regional and international actors with sometimes competing and conflicting agendas. A complex and multifaceted endeavour, scholarship on this topic is relatively scarce and widely dispersed across diverse sources. It examines how Pacific policing is shaped by changing state-society relations in different national contexts and ongoing processes of globalisation. Particular attention is given to the plural character of Pacific policing, profound challenges of gender equity, changing dynamics of crime, and the prominence of transnational policing in resource and capacity constrained domestic environments. The authors draw on examples from across the Pacific islands to provide a nuanced and contextualised account of policing in this socially diverse and rapidly transforming region.

This book examines questions about the changing nature of security and insecurity in Pacific Island Countries (PICs). Previous discussions of security in the Pacific region have been largely determined by the geopolitical interests of the Global North. This volume instead attempts to centre PICs’ security interests by focussing on the role of organisational culture, power dynamics and gender in (in)security processes and outcomes. Mapping Security in the Pacific underscores the multidimensional nature of security, its relationship to local, international, organisational and cultural dynamics, the resistances engendered through various forms of insecurities, and innovative efforts to negotiate gender, context and organisational culture in reducing insecurity and enhancing justice. Covering the Pacific region widely, the volume brings forth context-specific analyses at micro-, meso- and macro-levels, allowing us to examine the interconnections between security, crime and justice, and point to the issues raised for crime and justice studies by environmental insecurity. In doing so, it opens up opportunities to rethink scholarly and policy frames related to security/insecurity about the Pacific. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students and scholars in criminology, sociology, cultural studies, social theory and those interested in learning about the Pacific region and different aspects of security.

Research on policing in the Pacific Islands draws from multiple disciplines, reflecting the multifaceted nature of policing in local contexts that neither fit a Western model of statehood nor adopt an analytic position from the global North. This chapter sets the scene for a focused, contextualised and interdisciplinary discussion of policing in Pacific Islands countries and territories. It recognises the need to analyse policing both within the broader context of the global dynamics of policing, crime and (in)security, and within the specific, complex, and diverse countries and territories of the region. The chapter outlines the structure of the book and provides an overview of the chapters that follow.

In Greek mythology, Triton wass he merman son of Poseidon and Amphrite who lived in a golden palace on the bottom of the ocean. A demi-god of the seas, he was represented as a human to his waist but with the tail of a fish. Armed with a trident, he used a large twisted seashell to calm or raise the waves. The minnows, defined as undersized fish often devoured as bait, are the Pacific Islands constantly threatened by external forces.

Police personnel have increasingly been deployed outside their own domestic jurisdictions to uphold law and order and to help rebuild states. This book explores the phenomenon of a 'new international policing' and outlines the range of challenges and opportunities it presents to both practitioners and theorists.

Despite the heated competition for colonial possessions in Papua New Guinea during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the personnel required to run an effective administration were scarce. As a result, the Australian colonial regime opted for a quick solution: it engaged Papua New Guineans—often to perform the most hazardous and most unpopular responsibilities. Based on extensive interviews with former policemen, written records of the time, and reminiscences of colonial officials, this book links events involving police, villagers, and government officers (kiaps) over a forty-year period to wider issues in the colonial history of Papua New Guinea and, by extension, of the Pacific Islands and beyond.