Police as knowledge brokers and keepers of the peace: perceptions of community policing in Tuvalu

ABSTRACT

Pacific Island Countries (PICs) face externally driven changes, including an international human rights agenda. Tuvalu was the first PIC to develop a National Action Plan on human rights, with a focus on improving the circumstances for women, children, and people with disabilities. Achieving these objectives requires a whole-of-government approach and a comprehensive process of community consultation. This study, undertaken at the request of the Tuvalu Police Service as part of a community consultation process, aimed to explore perceptions of policing. Interview participants (N = 79) included community members (n = 63) and police officers (n = 16). English translations of interview transcripts were systematically coded and analysed thematically. Alcohol misuse was identified as a central cause for concern associated with disharmony in families and communities. Community members recognised various resourcing constraints, but nevertheless expected a high standard of police service delivery. Reflecting a community policing ethos, both groups endorsed roles for police officers as knowledge brokers and keepers of the peace. Participants emphasised the need for police to work together with community leaders to find ways to bridge the gaps between the traditional and formal justice systems. Future research is needed to explore ways to better align the formal and traditional systems that contribute to progress on human rights.

KEYWORDS:

• Pacific Island Countries
• community policing
• hybrid justice
• human rights

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Former Commissioner of Police, Luka Falefou, In-Country Project Coordinator, Mr Timi Melei, the Tuvalu Police Service and all police officers and community members who participated in the study. We also thank the research team based at University of the South Pacific for their work in collecting and analysing data. We thank the Tuvalu-based research assistants who collected interview data and those who translated responses from Tuvaluan into English.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Dr Danielle Watson received grants from the Australian Federal Police through their Pacific Police Development Programme – Regional (PPDP-R) and the University of the South Pacific through the Strategic Research Theme Project Funding to facilitate in-country data collection and preliminary analysis with a local research team. Dr Loene Howes received a grant from the College of Arts, Law and Education (CALE) Hothouse Grant Scheme at the University of Tasmania to facilitate further data analysis.

Notes on contributors

Loene M. Howes

Loene M. Howes is a senior lecturer in Criminology in the School of Social Sciences and a researcher in the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies (TILES) at the University of Tasmania. Her research aims to foster increased effectiveness of the communication in the criminal justice system in ways that enhance access to justice. It explores topics such as the relational dynamics of police investigative interviews, including those that involve interpreters; inter-professional communication about forensic scientific evidence; and policing partnerships in Pacific contexts.

Danielle Watson

Danielle Watson is Senior Lecturer in the School of Justice at Queensland University of Technology. She conducts research on policing in developing small-island territories with particular interests in police capacity building, recruitment and training, responses to domestic and family violence, strategies for improved police/community relations as well as many other areas specific to policing in developing country contexts. Her research also includes a focus on regional security, particularly the protection of borders in the Caribbean and the Pacific. She is the principal researcher on two ongoing projects ‘Policing Pacific Island Communities’ and ‘Re-evaluating Police Responses to Domestic and Family Violence’. She is also the editor (together with Sara Amin and Christian Girard) of Mapping Security in the Pacific: A Focus on Context, Gender and Organizational Culture, 1st Edition (2020 Routledge) and sole author of Police and the Policed: Language and Power Relations on the Margins of the Global South (2018, Palgrave Macmillan).

Lyndsay Newett

Lyndsay Newett is a PhD Candidate in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania. Her PhD research explores the use of digital technologies within the context of intimate life and the family. She has a background in both criminology and quantitative sociology and has been involved in a wide range of research projects, from LGBTI-inclusive medical practice, to policing perspectives and practices.