Best Practices for Community Policing and Crime Prevention in Nigeria

Abstract

Community engagement lies at the core of policing. Therefore, through collaborative efforts, community and police members address crime and disorder using approaches determined to be best practices for their communities. Today, community policing involves a new philosophy of police operations and management; hosting an accountability system involving the entire organisation. Nevertheless, to be effective in preventing crime, Nigerian police must place renewed emphasis on community engagement and practices. Based on this premise, this paper examines the best practices for community policing and crime prevention in Nigeria. The paper began with an introduction which x-rayed community policing as evolving to meet the new expectations that emerge in the 21st Century. The paper further looked into the philosophical principles of community policing, crime prevention, community policing best practices for Nigeria, organisational changes for implementing community policing best practices for Nigeria, and the expected benefits of community policing to Nigerians. The paper concluded that while the ways of implementing community policing may differ in practice in accordance with certain conditions in the communities, it is imperative to know that the basic philosophical principles of community policing should always be adhered to, if the best practices for community policing is to be achieved in Nigeria.