Papua New Guinea has significant law and order problems. Many of these arise from structural factors and processes whose origins lie well beyond the law and justice sector. Responding to them requires policy interventions across a range of government sectors. Law and order is, in other words, a cross-cutting issue demanding the attention of the entire spectrum of social and economic policy areas. Part of the problem in Papua New Guinea has been the often quite unrealistic expectations of the key law and order agencies. International evidence establishes the important limitations of law and order responses, including policing, in the control of crime and disorder. As Bayley (1994, 10) remarks:

Ultimately, getting this sector of government to work depends in large part on getting other sectors — notably essential service delivery — working effectively. In addition, the uncritical promotion of conventional deterrence-oriented law enforcement measures detracts from the need to develop appropriate crime and conflict prevention strategies.

Having said that, there is no doubt that the criminal justice system, including the RPNGC, can and should operate much more effectively than it currently does. This requires attention to the particular needs of individual agencies, as well as those of the sector as a whole. It is a major and long-term challenge that, if successful, is likely to consist of incremental improvements rather than any rapid and dramatic transformation. There are no quick-fix solutions. As in many other jurisdictions, policy formulation in this area has regularly been subordinated to the exigencies of immediate responses to crises. There has been a continuous tension between the longer-term perspective needed for capacity-building, policy development and reform, on the one hand, and more pressing short-term law enforcement requirements, on the other. This is where the ‘politics of law and order’ often serve to accentuate existing problems of lack of capacity. Where progress has occurred, as in recent years, the initiatives have tended to come from law and justice professionals in the relevant agencies, rather than from elected leaders pursuing short-term political agendas. Political leadership is, of course, important and where effective can be a critical factor in progressing reform. It nevertheless remains a two-edged sword.

As we have seen, the law and justice sector is one of the most complicated of government sectors, comprising many different agencies and institutions, each with its own corporate identity, goals and institutional culture. This makes for a particularly challenging policy environment. Given the level of operational interdependency between the various institutional components of the sector, some degree of coordination and cooperation between them is required. The establishment of the NCM in 2003 and gradual adoption of a sector-wide approach are positive developments that should facilitate coordination, though it would be unwise to underestimate the difficulties this presents in practice.

Policing remains a critical challenge in Papua New Guinea and, as documented in the 2004 review, the RPNGC is in urgent need of repair. The fact that the police have been recipients of significant levels of development assistance over many years indicates the enormous difficulties of capacity building in this area. It is neither simple nor something that can be achieved over a short period of time. While it is important to develop new approaches to capacity building, it is equally clear that there is no single or fully adequate strategy. A significant part of the problem with the police, as with other agencies, has been prolonged government neglect and the failure to provide the RPNGC with the resources required to fulfil its duties. Development assistance has traditionally focused on the provision of training and generally shies away from addressing these more fundamental resource issues on the grounds of sustainability (or lack thereof). Such assistance also appears to work most effectively when there is a stable domestic policy environment and where donor and domestic policy objectives coincide. Problems arise when there are significant differences — real or imagined — between the objectives of donors and domestic authorities. This appears to have contributed to the difficulties of the ECP, which was in large part conceived as part of the Australia’s own domestic security agenda.

The tensions between local approaches to dispute resolution that prevail in large parts of Papua New Guinea and the state-centred basis of the modern justice system present additional challenges. They also present opportunities and it is important to move beyond seeing these community-based strategies primarily as an obstacle to the consolidation of the rule of law. The arguments put forward by the Clifford Report remain as valid today as they were when originally proposed over twenty years ago. As we have seen, the current law and justice policy reiterates the need to develop more effective linkages between formal and informal sectors and the establishment of the Community Justice Liaison constitutes a modest step towards this end. The relative success of community-based approaches in a variety of different contexts from Bougainville through to urban settlements provides, at the very least, a case for exploring the potential for more innovative and socially attuned approaches to community security and safety in Papua New Guinea. This is not to understate the real difficulties, including human rights abuses, which can attach to community-based strategies. Nor is it proposed as an alternative to building state capacity. As stated at the outset of this chapter, Papua New Guinea’s law and order problems reflect weaknesses in the regulatory capacities of both state and local (non-state) institutions. The long-term challenge is to build both and enhance complementarity between them. State justice needs to be rendered more accessible, accountable, and responsive to local needs, while community justice practices need to brought into a human rights regulatory framework. Among other things, the successful mobilization of local cultural resources — at little or no cost to the state — will relieve some of the pressure on the over-burdened and extremely costly formal justice system.