The Spatial Dimension of Police Legitimacy: An Exploration of Two Pacific Island States

Abstract

The police legitimacy literature is grounded predominantly in studies from the Global North. In these contexts, technology and economic resources allow policing institutions to exercise significant reach in ways that mitigate the challenges to service delivery posed by distance and geography while the bureaucratic state relationally distances these same institutions from the public. This scholarship tends to take these governmental ‘fixes’ as given. In Global South contexts, these fixes are less reliable. The complexities of policing in dispersed states—rural, remote, and island—are frequently mentioned within scholarship. However, the question of how spatial relations impact police legitimacy and services largely remains a passing concern. In this paper, we argue that in the Global South, spatial relations are important elements contributing to police legitimacy. This argument is made by reframing the rural and remote policing literature to explore how spatial archipelagic features influence how policing by the state occurs. This work is used as our analytical scaffold in two case studies of the Solomon Islands and Tonga that illustrate how space influences local views of police. We argue that space is a key contextual characteristic that needs to be considered within future police legitimacy research and theorisation.

“After god is police”: lived experiences of rural police officers in Trinidad and Tobago

“…, 1994). This not only demonstrates commitment to the rural value structure but also the exercising of discretion based on the social mores of the community (Cawthray and Bull, 2023; Dinnen and Allen, 2013). Such findings suggest that rural police agencies have a community policing orientation, which frequently incorporates problem-oriented approaches and engagement in a wide array of service activities due to their proximity and accountability to the community (Decker, 1979).…”

“…However, many suggest that the social closeness between officers and community members in rural communities creates a dynamic where officers are more likely to represent the values and customs of the community and therefore handle incidents in informal ways (Pelfrey, 2007;Weisheit et al, 1994). This not only demonstrates commitment to the rural value structure but also the exercising of discretion based on the social mores of the community (Cawthray and Bull, 2023;Dinnen and Allen, 2013). Such findings suggest that rural police agencies have a community policing orientation, which frequently incorporates problem-oriented approaches and engagement in a wide array of service activities due to their proximity and accountability to the community (Decker, 1979).…”