Plural Policing and Policing Pluralism in Contemporary Papua New Guinea

• In Event: Policy Panel: Plural Policing in the Global South: Navigating hybridity and security partnerships

Abstract

2024 began in Papua New Guinea with urban riots and looting that left around 20 dead and caused extensive damage to commercial premises in the national capital. A month later, over 40 deaths were reported in an ongoing inter-group conflict involving multiple local groups armed with high-powered weapons in the Highlands province of Enga. Violent crime and episodic outbreaks of civil conflict and social unrest have punctuated PNG’s post-independence history, making for one of the most challenging policing environments in the world. PNG’s small police force has struggled to fulfil its law enforcement and order maintenance mandate. While businesses and others with means have increasingly resorted to private security, most citizens rely on extended family and kinship networks, along with other informal approaches, for their daily policing and justice needs. The limitations of singular reliance on either state or informal policing approaches in PNG’s notably pluralistic social and regulatory settings are relatively well known. Drawing on examples of policing interventions in different parts of the country, this paper argues for the need to develop practical strategies that can bring together different policing actors and approaches to address some of the country’s most pressing law and order problems.

Author

• Sinclair Dinnen, Australian National University