‘Examining Stakeholder Perceptions of Community Policing in the Pacific: A Pilot Study on Community Policing in Tuvalu’ presented by Dr. Danielle Watson

Research Seminar
 
Topic: ‘Examining Stakeholder Perceptions of Community Policing in the Pacific: A Pilot Study on Community Policing in Tuvalu’ presented by Dr. Danielle Watson

Please join members of the Crime and Justice Research Centre for the first in the seminar series for 2018.

Date:         Tuesday 23 January 2018
When:       4.00pm – 5.30pm
Venue:      C Block, Level 4, Room C412,
QUT Gardens Point Campus,
2 George Street, Brisbane

Register:  by Thursday 18 January 2018
by accepting the calendar invitation or emailing law.research@qut.edu.au

Abstract:
Recent dialogue about police capacity building in the Pacific region highlights the necessity of adapting and formulating context specific initiatives geared towards advancing jurisdictional agendas. What these discussions vaguely acknowledge is the uniqueness of member countries within the region with specific capacity building requirements and the need for development initiatives to match contextual challenges. Development initiatives should reflect consideration of police organizations role as the most visible arm of the state with responsibility for maintaining law and order, from a standpoint of promoting efficiency and effectiveness. Critical to Pacific police organizations capacity to execute the state mandate is the ability of officers to demonstrate the highest levels of accuracy and efficiency in conducting professional practice. My argument is that continued review of what is considered professional practice and examination of customer satisfaction with the service provided by police are of paramount importance to meeting the police mandate of maintaining law and order at the societal level.
The Tuvalu Police Service (TPS) has expressed its commitment to providing more service oriented policing underscored by professional codes of conduct, behaviors and performance. What presents a difficulty for the police organization, however, is the lack of capacity to drive, evaluate and strategically revise changes, and the inability to derive informed responses to societal stakeholder expectations. The organization therefore relies on donor aid countries to provide required assistance. Most recently, the University of the South Pacific was approached to assist with the collection and analysis of data to inform the TPS’s strategic planning and crime prevention model. The study is a subset of that initiative intended to provide assistance to the TPS by firstly, creating a model for assessing primary stakeholders (police and public) perceptions of and satisfaction with the provision of community policing services; secondly, conduct a comparative analysis of stakeholder perceptions and finally, offer recommendations for continued professional development of police officers in the area of community policing and propose an actionable direction for improved community policing based on the identified stakeholders’ positions. Danielle’s goal is to add to the ongoing dialogue about community policing initiatives in the Pacific and provide necessary data for continued reflection and revision of policing practices in developing Pacific islands.

Danielle is the coordinator of the Pacific Policing Programme at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. She conducts research on police/civilian relations on the margins with particular interests in hotspot policing, police recruitment and training as well as many other areas specific to policing in developing country contexts. Her research interests are multidisciplinary in scope as she also conducts research geared towards the advancement of tertiary teaching and learning. She is the principal researcher on two ongoing projects “Policing Pacific Island Communities” and “Re-Imagining Graduate Supervision at Regional Universities”. She is also the lead author (with Erik Blair) of Reimagining Graduate Supervision in Developing Contexts: A Focus on Regional Universities (2018, Taylor and Francis), and sole author of a forthcoming Pivot Police and the Policed: Language and Power Relations on the Margins of the Global South (2018, Palgrave Macmillan)