Policing Illicit Drugs in the Pacific: The Role of Culture and Community on the Frontline

Introduction

Transnational crime is borne of multiple overlapping criminal networks and modalities that have benefited from increased globalization and technological connectivity. Notably, criminal groups engage increasingly in profit-motivated alliances with other groups, regardless of a shared ethnicity or ideology (Hughes et al., 2018). Moreover, as organized crime groups diversify their activities, the lines become blurred between national security and serious and organized crime (Coyne & Bell, 2011). In the Pacific region, it has been identified that transnational crime includes a range of issues, such as environmental crimes (especially illegal fishing and resource extraction), sex trafficking (associated with logging and resource extraction industries), and the trafficking of illicit drugs and their precursors (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2016). However, despite its relevance to other parts of the world, scholarship on transnational crime in the Pacific is relatively scarce (Boister, 2005; McCusker, 2006; Schloenhardt, 2007; Watson et al., 2021). In part, the emergent status of such scholarship can be attributed to “the mobility and elusiveness of offenders and victims, innovation in modus operandi, and dangerousness of the research subject” (Barbaret, 2014). In addition, with the exception of a cohort of principally Australian and New Zealand–based scholars, the bridging of criminological theory (predominantly from the Global North) with criminal developments in the Pacific (the Global South) has been slow (Forsyth et al., 2020).

In recognition of the changing face of crime and criminality in the Pacific, in 2018 the Pacific Islands Forum, which consists of 18 member nations (Australia, New Zealand, and 16 Pacific Island countries, with one additional associate member), adopted the Boe Declaration on Regional Security at the meeting in Boe in Nauru. The declaration identifies transnational crime as a key regional security challenge in the Pacific (Pacific Islands Forum, 2018). In fact, a review of existing national security policies, conducted by the first author, reveals growing concerns about the impact of transnational crime not only in the region broadly but also by individual countries within it. For example, Samoa’s inaugural national security policy cited increasing transnational crime “despite improved awareness, cooperation and operational responses by law enforcement agencies in the region.” (Ministry of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, 2018). Vanuatu’s first national security strategy, Secure and Resilient (Ministry of Internal Affairs, 2019), similarly identified transnational crime as a current and emerging threat—and signaled the creation of the Pacific Fusion Centre (Payne, 2020) as key to boosting Vanuatu’s information and intelligence capacity (Ministry of Internal Affairs, 2019). Solomon Islands’ foundational National Security Strategy (Ministry of Police, National Security and Correctional Service, 2020) lists securing its borders and territory against transnational crime as the second of 12 national security goals.

Drug trafficking has long been a priority of law enforcement in developed countries, partly because internationally, terrorist groups have been known to finance their activities with the proceeds from illicit drugs (Ruggiero, 2019) and lucrative markets for drugs—such as those in Australia and New Zealand—are attractive to these groups (Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, 2017). In recent years, drug-related crime has also attracted increased attention in the Pacific region. For example, the acting Justice Minister, Samiu Vaipulu, told Tonga’s parliament that “‘ice’ is Tonga’s killing virus, not COVID-19” (“Tonga Pushes Through Tough New Drug Laws”, 2020). In the speech at his farewell parade in Nuku’alofa, the outgoing Tongan Police Commissioner, Stephen Caldwell, highlighted the challenges posed by the increasing prevalence of illicit drugs in the community. He noted the need for police to forge partnerships with local and regional actors to stop their spread in the community, stating that “the police cannot do this alone” (as quoted in Sousa-Santos, 2021b). Calls for community support to combat drug-related problems have echoed throughout the Pacific. Following the seizure of marijuana plants with a total street value of US$71.5 million on the Fijian island of Kadavu, the Roko Tui (chief), Kitione Raibevu, told media that the police need “support and assistance from the communities” to eradicate drugs from the island (Rovoi, 2021).

This article explores the challenges for law enforcement in responding to the production, trafficking, and usage of illicit drugs in the Pacific region. The article first examines the issue of illicit drugs in the Pacific, which are a key topic of local news reports, in terms of the transnational and local crime nexus and the impacts on the community, as well as policing approaches informed by the security strategies of Pacific Islands countries. It then considers what can be learned from policing in partnership with regional partners in post-conflict and non-post-conflict situations in the Pacific. Finally, drawing upon theory about security networks, the article considers the relevance of plural and hybrid approaches for the policing of drug-related crime. The article argues that the cultural, social, and hierarchical webs of Pacific Islands communities act as security nodes or networks on the frontline against illicit activities. While plural and hybrid models of policing are more typically associated with community policing, they may also be critical to combating drug-related transnational crime. Through an exploration of drug-related crime in the Pacific, and its operation at the nexus of local and transnational crime, this article seeks to contribute to an emerging area within the broader, albeit still relatively nascent field, of what Forsyth et al. (2020) term “Pacific criminology.”

Transnational and Local Crime Nexus

The Pacific region consists of multiple islands with relatively small populations, spread across vast expanses of ocean—the region characterized by porous maritime borders (Watson et al., 2021). These features, along with the relatively low risk of detection and the profitability of transnational and organized crime in this environment, contribute to its appeal for illicit activities (Watson et al., 2021). The region has a maritime corridor, which is used for legitimate trade between major economic markets (McNulty, 2013) and has also been a transshipment hub for drugs. The Pacific region is invaluable to both Asian organized crime syndicates and Mexican and South American cartels as a transit route—and at times, production site—targeting the highly lucrative markets in Australia and New Zealand (Sousa-Santos, 2022). For example, significant drug seizures in Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, and Vanuatu suggest that “these areas are key nodes or critical junctures in the dark network that Mexican cartels use to penetrate the Australian market” (McCarthy-Jones, 2016, p. 8). Increasingly, the Pacific region is also a site for drug use, as suggested by a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC, 2016), which noted an increase in the domestic consumption and availability of crystalline methamphetamine (“ice”) and the growth of a local market. Importantly, the Pacific drugs market “is not a separate and self-contained entity, but part of a larger complex global network with interconnected channels for supply and demand” (UNODC, 2016, p. 4).

Over the past two decades, the Pacific’s transnational crime landscape has evolved. Parallel to the increase in drug trafficking, local indigenous crime groups and networks have emerged, with international links to organized crime syndicates. This growth in local crime has been driven by three key factors: first, the spillover effect of trafficked drugs into local markets; second, the growth of local markets from a base of largely elite and expatriate drug users to markets with wider population bases; and third, the arrival of criminal deportees from Australia, New Zealand and the United States (Sousa-Santos, 2021b). For example, the Pacific Transnational Crime Network (PTCN, 2018) identified a “dramatic increase” in drug-related activity between 2014 and 2017 as methamphetamine, known for its low cost and highly addictive properties, rapidly became available across all subregions of the Pacific. Moreover, the PTCN noted instances of arrests for drug trafficking offenses in Fiji and Samoa of offenders who had previously been deported from other countries for drug-related convictions (PTCN, 2018). This situation reflects the influences on drug-related crimes in the Pacific region that arise from criminal deportation policies in countries of the Global North and transnational criminal networks.

In 2019, Fijian Police Commissioner, Brigadier-General Sitiveni Qiliho, voiced publicly what had become widely accepted among law enforcement and security professionals—that the Pacific Islands were no longer just transit points for the shipment of illicit drugs to Australia and New Zealand but had become destinations—markets—for illicit drugs. Qiliho’s statement that “we also have local users now” (Lyons, 2019a) reflected growing evidence that the “spillover” into local drug markets coupled with the Pacific becoming sites of production had given rise to a growing demographic of drug users. In 2021, the Fijian Police Force Drugs Unit officer in charge, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Anare Masitabua, stated that “there is a rapid increase in the usage and seizure of methamphetamine and other synthetics; this shows that methamphetamine is locally manufactured” (Vakasukawaqa, 2021). Fiji’s Director of Public Prosecutions, Christopher Pryde, claimed that funds from illicit drug activities were estimated at more than US$5 million per annum and that “local traffickers could make between US$2500 and US$5000 a day from the sale of cocaine and meth in the domestic market” (Rovoi, 2021).

Notably, the COVID-19 pandemic has not diminished or weakened the trade in, or demand for, illicit drugs. For instance, in 2020 more than 500 kg of cocaine with a street value estimated at A$81 million were seized in Papua New Guinea and a ship containing 649 kg of cocaine, with a street value of more than A$112 million, foundered on an atoll in the Marshall Islands. In 2021, 14 kg of cocaine washed up on Tongan beaches (Sousa-Santos, 2022). In late 2021, close to 10 kg of methamphetamines bound for Fiji from the United States via the postal service was seized, with the United States Attorney-General noting the impacts on community safety that had been prevented by the seizure (Chand, 2021).

Police Responses

Detecting and disrupting the supply of illicit drugs are essential to prevent negative impacts on the health of Pacific people and communities. However, doing so poses significant challenges for policing, as it is beyond what any one country, or one police organization, can achieve on its own. Traditional single agency policing responses are inadequate for combating transnational organized crime. What is needed is a high-quality collaborative policing response to prevent, detect, disrupt, investigate, and prosecute such crime (Coyne & Bell, 2011). However, existing research from countries of the Global North identifies organizational, interpersonal, and regulatory impediments to effective interagency collaboration and intelligence sharing (Joyal, 2012; Kowalick et al., 2018).

Local Security Networks and Drug-Related Crime

Hybridity suggests that state and nonstate policing are integrated to some extent. The actors involved can be further described as security networks. They can be understood as a set of institutional, organizational, communal, or individual agents or nodes that “are interconnected to authorise and/or provide security to the benefit of internal or external stakeholders” (Dupont, 2004, p. 78). While any typology is incomplete and fragmented, four ideal types of security networks have been proposed: local security networks, institutional security networks, international security networks, and virtual security networks (Dupont, 2004). Local security networks are the present focus.

Local security networks can be defined as “initiatives that seek to harness the public and private resources available in local communities to overcome complex crime problems that find their origins in deteriorating social conditions” (Dupont, 2004, p. 79). Dupont (2004) explains that local security networks reflect “tacit acknowledgements by the state of the limitations and ineffectiveness of its fragmented and monopolistic intervention strategies” (p. 79). The nodes in local security networks can include a broad range of actors. They encompass traditional social control agencies, such as the police, local magistrates, and social services, but they extend beyond these groups to include other key groups such as residential communities, specific communities of interest, elected officials, business interests, and private security providers (Bayley & Shearing, 2001; Dupont, 2004; Newburn, 2001). This Western understanding can be applied to understand the various sites of traditional and nontraditional power and influence within Pacific communities.

Using Dupont’s model, Pacific communities are critical nodes within local security networks. Within these communities, traditional (mostly male) authorities, such as chiefs and church leaders, hold considerable influence. Dupont (2004) refers to this kind of influence as “capital,” and specifically as cultural, social, political, economic, and symbolic capital. These types of capital are “used as strategic assets to acquire or maintain a dominant position within security networks” (Dupont, 2004, p. 85).

The nexus between transnational and local criminal actors and the intersection between crime and kinship are complex in the Pacific. The cultural, social, and hierarchical web of Pacific Islands families and communities, including those associated with religion and churches, can serve as the frontline—in terms of crime prevention—against illicit activities. For state police, working closely with community groups that are engaged in nonstate policing activities related to drug-related crime prevention can contribute in valuable ways. For example,

Following an information sharing workshop on illegal drugs, an operating unit in the community was identified by a family member. The information was passed onto NID [National Intelligence Department] and when the officers came to make arrests, the father of the young person provided all relevant information about his son. (Sankar & Johnson, 2019, p. 14)

However, paradoxically, these webs of social organization can also provide a source of social capital for illicit actors. The web can also be a shield and facilitator for actors reliant on impenetrable networks. As a Pacific Islands security official stated,

It is difficult when we know an individual is involved in drug crime but is related to a family member, a minister, a judge in the courts, a senior official. Who do we question? The doors close. Conducting investigations here isn’t like doing investigations in Australia. . . there are layers of cultural obligations and implications. (As quoted in Sousa-Santos, 2022, p. 7)

Families and communities may seek to protect their members for fear of shame. As Braithwaite (2015) has noted, the shame for misdeeds of an individual person is likely to be experienced collectively in Pacific contexts. As a traditional Tongan leader stated, if not addressed, shame can have negative impacts on family engagement in community life:

Families are angry with young people stealing family mats et cetera to sell or swap for drugs . . . this shames families within communities . . . [H]aving a child or parent on drugs impacts the family’s status in the community . . . [I]t’s not just the individual but the family which is impacted and can lead to families pulling away from village life. (As quoted in Sousa-Santos, 2022, p. 18)

In this respect, Pacific communities are critical dynamics—or nodes—within the network of security actors that may be engaged in both combating and proliferating transnational criminal activities.

Examples of hybrid approaches to addressing drug-related crime have become apparent in recent years in the Pacific region. In Samoa, village councils have partnered with police to bolster anti-drug campaigning (Sousa-Santos, 2022). Then-Samoan Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Lupesoliai Sailele Malielegaoi, noted in 2015 that “in some villages, they have zero tolerance for these [drug-related] activities and have imposed stiff penalties—including banishment” (Tuiletuguga, 2015). In recognition of the importance of nonstate involvement in addressing drug-related problems in communities, in 2018 the Tongan Government established the National Drugs Steering Committee, which comprises government agencies and nonstate community leaders. The types of approaches developed tend to include efforts to promote community awareness of the harms associated with drug use, reduce the stigma of seeking help, and advising people of where and how they can report issues. Efforts to bring the police and community groups together for information-sharing can contribute not only to trust-building but also to prevention through information exchange (Sankar & Johnson, 2019). Additional areas where hybrid and community-based approaches could be helpful are in efforts to assist criminal deportees to settle into community life with appropriate ways to make a living. Of course, these efforts can be aided further by Pacific Islands countries in collaboration with the deporting countries that share responsibility in supporting them to desist from crime (i.e., through information-sharing and policy assistance), as noted in the Action Plan associated with the Boe Declaration (Pacific Islands Forum, 2019).

Several limitations exist for the inclusion of traditional power structures and church authorities in discussions of the policing of drug-related crime. These include the moral, cultural, and religious constraints on discussing topics deemed sensitive, and the patriarchal nature of traditional and church hierarchies impacts the ability of men and church leaders to engage with vulnerable women and girls. In particular, these kinds of issues have been highlighted when aiming to address domestic and family violence (Bull et al., 2019). Indeed, as discussed in research in Tuvalu about the role of religious leaders in policing (Amin et al., 2022), the inclusion of religious sources of authority in the solutions may be welcomed both by police officers and by community members, and make for more locally appropriate interventions, with the caveat that working together means that various types of leaders must engage collectively in discussions about policing parameters and agree on boundaries and roles (Amin et al., 2022). Hybridity is not new in Pacific contexts involving international peacebuilding (Wallis, 2012), political reconciliation (Jeffery, 2016), and collaborative approaches to policing that co-produce safety and security (Watson & Dinnen, 2020). Further strengthening such approaches offers a way forward on the challenging issue of drug-related crime.

Conclusion

This article has discussed the need to rethink responses to drug-related local and transnational crime in the Pacific region. Transnational crime in general and illicit drugs in particular have been recognized as a significant threat to security and stability in the Pacific Islands region (Pacific Islands Forum, 2018). Explorations of the changing face of crime and criminality in the region in relation to illicit drugs reveal the growing nexus between transnational crime and local actors, which in turn presents increasing challenges for Pacific Islands and donor partner law enforcement agencies. In the Pacific Islands, nonstate sources of authority have a critical role to play as nodes within the broader security network. As part of local security networks, they can offer valuable opportunities for detecting, disrupting, and preventing drug-related crime in the Pacific region.

For state policing organizations, work on developing relationships among local security networks can build on existing strengths within Pacific communities. Navigating the intricacies of relationships within and between local security networks in specific Pacific contexts presents its own challenges. Despite the challenges involved, this article has argued that navigating these relationships is essential for effective policing in the Pacific region. It has argued for the institutionalization of a hybrid approach to policing drug-related crime, such that it incorporates both Western policing models with indigenous methods that center the community as critical “nodes” with extensive “capital.” This approach offers a way forward for the policing of drug-related crime because it offers multipronged and culturally suitable ways to address the common goal of reducing drug-related crime in all its forms.