{"id":31845,"date":"2026-10-01T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/?post_type=oasis-news&p=31845"},"modified":"2026-09-30T13:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T05:24:17","slug":"making-milestones-examining-police-taser-misuse-and-its-oversight-mechanisms-in-wa","status":"publish","type":"oasis-news","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/oasis-news\/making-milestones-examining-police-taser-misuse-and-its-oversight-mechanisms-in-wa\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Milestones: Examining police taser misuse and its oversight mechanisms in WA\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reading time: 5 minutes<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessikah Nielsten and Robert Cunningham reflect on the highlights and challenges of the PhD journey so far. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessikah:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m\u202flooking at police taser misuse in Western Australia and the accompanying oversight mechanisms\u2013what happens when the police taser somebody, and whether there are appropriate complaint mechanisms to deal with\u202fthat.\u202fWe’ve\u202falso tied that in with the rule of law, so\u202fthat’s\u202fan underpinning principle of the research.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m trying to make the world a safer place and conduct research that looks at accountability for power as well. It’s about making sure that, if police are going to use force, that use of force is subject to oversight or scrutiny, so that if they do the wrong thing, there’s a consequence.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was\u202fa teacher before I became a lawyer.\u202f\u202fThis is my seventh university degree, so\u202fI started doing a Bachelor of Laws, and then I did a postgraduate enrolment in Honours and also\u202fthe postgraduate diploma in Legal Practice here, which I did on a scholarship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So\u202fI finished\u202fHonours, and I graduated as dux of the\u202fHonours\u202fclass.\u202fAt that point I obtained a research training partnership scholarship through the Australian government to complete my research. Robert was also my supervisor in\u202fHonours, and so we just expanded that topic out for PhD.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Robert actually inspired the topic\u2013it didn’t come from me. He was tasered by the police some time ago, and\u202fas\u202fa consequence, we thought, \u2018Hey,\u202flet’s\u202fwork on something to hold the police accountable,\u2019 so\u202fI tracked\u202fhim down. He agreed to supervise my research, and\u202fwe’ve\u202fnever looked back.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I have a couple of supervisors who have been in and out.\u202fI have Associate Professor Lisa Hartley, who was the former\u202fco-director of the Centre for Human Rights Education. She stepped away from academia for a while, but\u202fshe’s\u202fcome back, so\u202fshe’s\u202fagain my supervisor. I also have Dr Steven Monterosso from the Curtin Law School, who’s also part of the project, but\u202fpredominantly it\u202fis Professor Cunningham who is the principal supervisor.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within the actual research of my PhD, it’s a challenge where there’s no or limited publicly available data, and you have to get creative to be able to draw certain conclusions, so I’ve done that by looking at coronial inquests where tasers were used and then utilising that so that there is some way of supporting my research question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think one of the highlights was getting a research engagement grant from Curtin to go to the Australian Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission Conference in Darwin. That helped with looking at the rule of law and the culture that you have within an organisation.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But just in general, doing the PhD has been fantastic. I have learnt a lot, and I’ve grown a lot, and my research skills are a lot better. I do feel like there’s been a huge growth between when I did honours and where I’m at now, and potentially when this will finish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my PhD, I’ve learned to have more confidence in my work. It took a lot of effort to believe in myself and understand that my work was good, because when you work on your own, you’re your own worst critic, and that, in combination with my perfectionism, could have held me back. I feel like I’ve got to the point now where I’m able to produce a large amount of research, feel confident in what I’m doing and share it with other people, and that really has come from Robert\u2019s support.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robert: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research has always, in my mind, been a fundamental aspect of my career. When universities are doing their best work,\u202fit’s\u202fwhen they are supporting human beings to be human beings. And\u202fso, putting aside the substantive content,\u202fI really think that research is a fundamental aspect of\u202fthe university experience.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You also get new insights by supervising PhD students because the whole purpose of a PhD is to create new knowledge, so it is a good way for academics to stay in touch with the discipline. Beyond all that, I’m always encouraging research students to do something they really care about, and it’s really nice to be around people who care about things. The idea of making the world a better place is something that also comes across in Jessikah’s research, and it’s nice to be part of the supervision process of that.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My supervisory style is hard but fair. I do try to bring a level of accountability into my supervisory approach, and do that in a way that gives the student the autonomy and agency to set the agenda. I think that’s the principle I come at this with\u2013it’s not my project, it’s the student’s project. Jessikah is someone who genuinely cares about the topic, but she’s got the self-discipline to do the work that needs to be done.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

For me, it’s been great to have a PhD student come along and say, I’m interested in that topic that I have a personal interest in. For someone to dedicate some time to doing work that I would be doing if I weren’t in my present role is great, just to know that you can have ideas and not be alone, that there are other people.  <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That’s what building a community of scholars is about. You might be on your own sort of research journey, but you’ve got other people to share that load with. Because it can be quite a lonely pathway, you need to find ways of connecting with others who at least understand the process, if not the substance of what you’re going through.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supervising projects like this is a reminder of the struggles that one goes through in research. And I learn from that myself because it reminds me that I’m not the only one who feels that way when I’m researching, because it can sometimes feel that way. Forging new pathways of ideas is a really challenging thing to do, but it’s so essential to the development of us as individuals, but also as a society.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When thinking about doing a PhD, once that seed is planted in you, I would just invite people to listen carefully and to pursue wherever that might take you, because it is a journey, but it’s also a gift you give to yourself. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drawing from Jessikah\u2019s PhD supervisor, Robert\u2019s, own experience with the police, her research into and examination of mechanisms of oversight have not been short of challenges. With Robert\u2019s assistance, she hopes that her scrutiny of these mechanisms in her PhD thesis will encourage accountability for taser misuse. | Reading time: 5 minutes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4495,"featured_media":31846,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"5545,5047,4723,7440,8034,4895","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_oasis-categories":0,"footnotes":""},"oasis-categories":[250],"class_list":["post-31845","oasis-news","type-oasis-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","oasis-categories-student-profile"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/20260512_030230373_iOS-1920x500.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Nikita","last_name":"Arun","display_name":"Nikita Arun"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-08 09:40:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"oasis-categories","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/oasis-news\/31845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/oasis-news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/oasis-news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/oasis-news\/31845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"oasis-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/oasis-categories?post=31845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}