The only State disciplined forces in Kiribati

Kiribati

Kiribati , officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The permanent population exceeds just over 100,000 , and is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, straddling the...

 are a unified national police

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

 force, with prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

 and quarantine

Quarantine

Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....

 powers, and the coast guard

Coast guard

A coast guard or coastguard is a national organization responsible for various services at sea. However the term implies widely different responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to being a volunteer organization tasked with...

. Defense

National security

National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...

 assistance is provided by Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

.

The Kiribati Police Service is an independent body with one police officer for every 222 people. Ioeru Tokantetaake is Commissioner

Commissioner

Commissioner is in principle the title given to a member of a commission or to an individual who has been given a commission ....

 of Police

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

, and also presides over prisons in Kiribati. The Kiribati Police Service do not carry weapons.

The police operate the RKS Teanoai (301), a Pacific class patrol boat

Pacific class patrol boat

The Pacific class is a class of 22 patrol boats built by Australia and donated to twelve South Pacific countries. Constructed from 1985 to 1997 and operated by militaries, coast guards or police forces of the twelve island nations, these boats are supported by the Pacific Patrol Boat Program...

provided to Kiribati by Australia as part of the Pacific Patrol Boat Program.

External links and references

• http://www.transparency.org.au/documents/kiribati.pdf
• http://www.csa.nsw.gov.au/AJCSD.staff.Kiribati.htm
• http://www.peacegallery.org/asiapacific/kiribati/kiribati06.htm
• http://www.isiservicescorp.com/mjcpatch.html