ROLE OF CITIZENS IN COMMUNITY POLICING IN NIGERIA

ROLE OF CITIZENS IN COMMUNITY POLICING IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

In the past, traditional communities have increasingly used informal remedies to compel non-offending third parties to prevent or take action or investigate crime, drug and disorder in their neighbourhood. However, today, preventing and resolving neighbourhood crime and disorder is the responsibilities of law enforcement agencies and other formal government authorities(Roehl 1998). The importance of citizens in crime prevention and order maintenance efforts became apparent in the mid-1970s, as concerns about street crime and residential burglaries began to rise and it became obvious that the police and other security agencies could not control and prevent crime effectively. With the formation and early success neighbourhood and block watch efforts, citizens themselves realized they could do something about the local crime problems that concerned them most. Aubow and Emmons (1981) labeled this the "Community Hypothesis". Stating that neighbourhood residents could be mobilized to participate in collective crime prevention, which get residents to take greater responsibility for local problems, rebuild informal social control and reduce crime and fear of crime.

Presently, criminal activities seem to be on the increase while the police force appears to become dysfunctional despite government huge expenditure on crime control. But this dysfunctionalism or inability of the prosecutorial agent of the state to combat the crime phenomenon is usually blamed on poor numeric strength, lack of sophisticated crime control equipment, poor welfare package, poor training of personnel, lack of assistance/information from civil society, poor budgeting allocation among others. This explains why the efficiency of the police as a law enforcement agency is very much in doubt. These further stresses on the importance of citizens in community policing in preventing crime in order to compliment the efforts of the police force and other security agencies.

Community policing is a complimentary security management strategy for  the prevention and control of neighbourhood crime(Monsuru and Rafiu 2016). The outcomes of the partnership between police and community however differ. Thus, the effectiveness in the way through which community policing is implemented an any given community will largely impact on the outcome of the approach whether it will be successful or not(Young & Tinsley, 1998). These partnerships are very essential because the police are only one of the agencies responsible for addressing community problems, and other agencies need to take responsibility and respond to crime prevention and problem solving in partnership with police at all level (ibid). Community policing is anchored on a systematic relationship between the police and the entire citizenry. According to Ikuteyijo (2009), community policing entails community partnership in creating a safe andsecure environment for all.Police roles and functions are not simply law enforcement but also include tackling a huge range ofcommunity problems (Okeshola and Mudiare 2013).