New Zealand advisors to improve policing in Pacific nations

New Zealand Police advisers will be sent to seven Pacific island nations as part of a four- year program to strengthen policing in the region, the New Zealand Police announced Monday.The Partnership for Pacific Policing (3P) program will involve training and mentoring by New Zealand Police officers of police services in the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.\"The 3P approach is about building operational capability and capacity plus the flexibility to respond to emerging Pacific policing needs,\" Assistant Commissioner (international) Malcolm Burgess said in a statement.\"New Zealand Police has significant strengths in community and prevention based policing. We will use this knowledge to encourage greater collaboration between Pacific police services, their communities and stakeholders.\"The advisers would work in areas such as road policing, prosecutions, community policing, forensics, investigations and case management.They would focus particularly on technical help, ethics and human rights, leadership, operational development and community engagement initiatives.\"I\'m confident it will bring long term benefits to New Zealand as we help build further policing capacity with our Pacific neighbors,\" said Burgess.The New Zealand government will fund the program with 4.19 million NZ dollars (3.53 million U.S. dollars).