[pjc50]

It only works with a lone police officer. It's extremely hard to cope with being totally socially excluded on a remote island. Any situation where the police themselves can form a community because there's enough of them, this approach won't work.

(I would note that one of the great American novels, To Kill A Mockingbird, deals precisely with the loneliness of trying to administer justice without community support)

Then there's horror classic The Wicker Man, about a police officer sent to a remote island to investigate a vanished girl and wall of silence ...