Democratization of community policing: Insights and perspectives on the Nigerian Experience

Abstract

In this work, the methods of democratization of community policing in Nigeria were addressed. The traditional methods of policing which focused on militaristic style of policing and the current focus of policing which hinges on police-public collaborations in policing make this study significant. The broad objective of this study is to identify the roles of various stakeholders in the democratization of community policing in Nigeria and the challenges. The specific objectives were to identify the roles of: the police, the public, and the challenges facing democratization of community policing in Nigeria. The work raised three research questions to address the objectives of the study. We adopted both primary and secondary sources of data collection. The result of this survey indicated that the police organize various workshops for police officers to enable them adapt to new policing style and accommodate views from all ranks including lower ranking officers; that the public participate in policing by promoting security outfits, monitoring immigrants, providing useful information to the police and arresting criminals and handing them over to the police; that this new policing programme suffers some institutional setbacks: selective implementation; inadequate personnel and poor budgetary allocations. Based on our findings, we recommend that Nigeria police service should be transformed to Nigeria community policing service; the numerical strength of the police should be raised in order to meet the international standard of one police officer to forty people, and that the budgetary provision for the police should be enhanced.