COMMUNITY POLICING IN NIGERIA AS A COMPREHENSIVE SOLUTION TO CRIME-FIGHTING

Community policing is a concept that is fast gaining ground in Nigeria especially among the police. Its model emphasizes proactive rather than reactive policing. It is also principled on partnership and decentralization of powers for effective crime-fighting.

The involvement of the community in crime fighting is a very essential element of community policing. While the Nigeria Police Force is used to the traditional model of policing where authorities are centralized and police only respond to call for service, in contrast, community policing believes that powers and responsibility of policing should be shared between the police and the community.

It is a paradigm shift from the traditional policing of receiving orders from above to that of making decisions as situations arises in the community. The slow development of community policing in Nigeria is due largely to the police history that is built on a semi-military command structure, and where the police are used to the use of force and brutality. However, as community policing begins to gain acceptance by the police, it will reduce crime rate because the public will assist the police in crime fighting by becoming the eye of the police in the

In this article we shall be examining community policing as a strategy of crime fighting, the principles behind this programme, benefits and challenges facing this programme in Nigeria.

Community policing has emerged as a major strategic complement to traditional policing practices. It focuses on establishing police-public partnerships, where the entire police organization, all government agencies and communities actively co-operate in solving problems. Community policing does not change the general objectives of democratic policing; it provides a strategy to achieve these objectives more effectively and efficiently in practice. These objectives continue to be:

• The maintenance of public peace, law and order;
• The protection of the individual’s fundamental rights and freedoms, particularly the right to life;
• The prevention and detection of crime; and
• The provision of assistance and services to the public to reduce fear, physical and social disorder, and neighbourhood decay.

What is a Community-Policing Approach?

Community policing, or police-public partnerships, can be defined as a philosophy and organizational strategy that promotes a partnership-based, collaborative effort between the police and the community to more effectively and efficiently identify, prevent and solve problems of crime, the fear of crime, issues of physical safety and security, social disorder, and neighbourhood decay in order to improve everyone’s quality of life.

The central premise of community policing is that the level of community participation in enhancing safety and social order and in solving crime affecting communities should be increased because the police cannot carry out this task on their own. In order to achieve such partnerships, the police must be more closely integrated into the community and should strengthen their legitimacy through policing by consent and by means of improving their services to the public.

The key principles of community policing are that the police should:

• Be visible and accessible to the public;
• Know, and be known by, the public;
• Engage, mobilize and partner with communities;
• Listen to communities’ concerns;
• Respond to communities’ needs;
• Respect and protect the rights of all community members; and
• Be accountable for their actions and the outcome of those actions.

Key strategies for translating these principles into practice include:

• Composing diverse police teams, with sufficient experience and an appropriate gender balance, that reflect the demographics of the community they serve;
• Permanently assigning police officers to specific communities, in particular to fixed geographic neighbourhoods;

• Introducing visible and easily accessible police officers and police facilities;
• Reorienting patrol activities to emphasize non-emergency services;
• Engaging communities through broad outreach and developing transparent partnerships with the public;

• Introducing a proactive problem-solving approach;
• Involving all government agencies and services; and
• Involving all branches of the police.

Organizational changes required for implementing a community-policing philosophy and strategies primarily involve management issues, internal structures of the police organization and the structures of the community and state agencies. The main changes in structures and management styles within the police should focus on:

• The devolution and decentralization of decision-making and resource management from mid-level management to front-line officers;
• The transformation of the responsibilities of all police officers, with subordinate ranks becoming more self-directing, and supervisors and senior ranks assuming a coordinating, guiding and supporting role to encourage front-line officers;
• A shift in communication within the police from a predominantly top down approach to greater emphasis on a bottom-up approach;
• The development of operating rules and procedures that reflect international human rights standards and establish accountability mechanisms;
• Training and mentoring of officers that goes beyond the traditional technical skills and basic requirements for democratic policing and includes an even broader range of skills, such as communicating, building trust, mediating in conflicts, developing creative approaches to addressing community concerns, human rights and gender-equality awareness, countering stereotypes, conducting problem-solving and gathering information, translating general mandates into appropriate action, and conveying the concerns of the community to police leadership and other stakeholders;
• The teaching of these skills in basic training for cadets, in field training for officers on probation, as well as during continuous in-service training for police officers, supervisors and managers; and
• The evaluation of, and rewards for, performance should focus on officers’ ability to effectively address community problems and to involve the community in this effort.

The main changes in structures and management styles outside the police should focus on:

• The empowerment of communities, with the police facilitating the organization of community meetings and forums, educating community members on how they can be actively involved in the problem-solving process; and
• The education of other government agencies about their role in the problem-solving approach and the establishment of formal structures for smooth co-operation in order to avoid duplication efforts, as well as dividing responsibilities, assisting each other and developing synergies in the use of public resources.

ORIGIN OF COMMUNITY POLICING

The central tenets of community policing that stresses involvement and responsiveness to the community are similar to the principle set forth by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 when he opined that the police are the public and the public are the police. However, as the police evolved in the United States, they grew further apart from the public they served. This social distance by the police away from the public was enhanced due to the advent of patrol cars which replaced the traditional foot patrol. Traditional police departments are insular organizations that response to calls for service from their offices.

This insular professional approach began to change in many agencies in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During this period, there was a paradigm shift in America from the traditional, professional model of policing to a more community partnership and proactive model of policing (Wrobleski and Hess, 2003:134-135). Thus, Community policing started in the United States as a way of shifting police from its traditional reactionary way of policing to a more proactive policing.

For decades, the U.S. police followed professional model, which rested on three foundations: preventive patrol, quick response time, and follow-up investigation. Sensing that the professional model did not always operate as efficiently and effectively as it could, Criminal justice researchers set out to review current procedures and evaluate alternative programme. One of the first known of these studies was the Kansas City, Missouri, Preventive Patrol Experiment. The study found that preventive patrol did not necessarily prevent crime or reassure citizens. Following the study, many police departments assigned police units to proactive patrol.

Another of such significant study was that done by James Q. Wilson and George kelling. They introduced the theory of “broken windows”. The theory assumes that a community will be free of major crime if minor crimes are gotten rid of. They concluded that in order to solve both minor and major problems in a neighborhood and to reduce crime and fear of crime, police must be in close, regular contact with citizens.

That is police and citizens should work cooperatively to build a strong sense of community and should share responsibility in the neighborhood to improve the overall quality of life within the community. (Bohm and Halen, 2005; 214- 2 15).

ADVENT OF COMMUNITY POLICING IN NIGERIA

As a result of the public distrust of the police, the former Inspector General of Police ,TO, Balogun, in 2003 undertook a number of measures to improve the police and citizen relationship. He established in all state commands the Police Complaints Bureau and the Human Rights Desks, and with the help of the British government, he introduced a pilot community policing project in Enugu State (Ibeanu, 2007) Tafa Balogun’s eight points agenda state in nutshell as follows:

1. Massive onslaught against robbers, gruesome murder, assassination and other crimes of violence against the backdrop of which operation Fire for Fire‟ was adopted as a methodology.
2. Fast decisive crime/ conflict management.
3. Community partnership in policing, the modern approach all over the world.
4. Serious anti-corruption crusade, both within and outside the Force.
5. Comprehensive training programme conducive for qualitative policing.
6. Improved conditions of service and enhanced welfare package for officers, inspectors and rank and file.
7. Inter-service/agency cooperation at all levels down the line.
8. Robust public relations necessary for the vision of people’s Police.

When Mike Okiro became I.G in 2007, he introduced a “9-way test”. The high points of these programme are: transparency and accountability, war on corruption and crime, crime prevention, upgrading intelligence and crime database, improved training, improving the public image and public relations of the police, improving human rights record of the police and interagency cooperation.

Since 2004, when the Community Policing pilot project was introduced in Enugu State, it has also been implemented in other states such as Ogun, Ondo, Kano, Jigawa, Anambra, Sokoto, Cross River and Edo States

BENEFITS OF COMMUNITY POLICING.

The benefits of community policing to the public, the police and other agencies are:

• The ability of communities to convey their concerns and their perspectives on problems to the police and to become partners in finding tailored solutions to their problems, which, in turn, can lead to improved crime prevention, improved safety and an enhanced perception of safety;
• The strengthening of social bonds and cohesion within communities, which can enhance their ability to address community issues and to withstand the social problems and pressures that could lead to crime or disorder in the future;
• The improvement of relations between the police and the public, increasing public trust, which is particularly important for relationships between the police and communities that may have been burdened by conflict in the past;
• An increase in police credibility and legitimacy, through greater transparency and accountability of police actions towards communities;

The building of synergies with other government entities in problem solving, which can save resources while addressing social problems;

• An increase in the information, in terms of quantity, quality and diversity, that is provided voluntarily by members of the public in support of police action;
• The enhancement of effectiveness and efficiency based on the benefits of technology and preventive action to solve problems; and

An increase in police officers’ job satisfaction, due to more positive encounters with the public; increased safety and self-confidence of officers, due to greater awareness of potential hot spots and real dangers; a generally improved working climate in police agencies, due to department-wide responsibilities and enhanced communication and co-operation between departments, as well as between front-line officers and their supervisors; and more avenues for career development, due to the greater variety of tasks and expanded responsibilities.

The benefits of community policing may not be easily measurable in the short term and could become more tangible in the medium to long term, as trust grows and partnerships between the police and the public develop and mature.  Continued commitment and investment are, therefore, necessary for community policing to deliver on its potential benefits.

Community policing can be an effective strategy to help reduce crime and enhance wider community safety. If implemented in its own right and with adequate planning and preparation, community policing can also make a tangible and durable contribution to wider strategic efforts to prevent terrorism and other forms of crime. However, policymakers and police leaders should have realistic expectations about the results that community policing can deliver in response to what is often a low-incidence, highly complex and multidimensional problem. They should also remain aware of the risks involved.

THE CHANLLENGES OF COMMUNITY POLICING IN NIGERIA

Despite its introduction, Community Policing has failed to achieve any meaningful success in Nigeria. The public perception of the police is worse than ever. The public still view the police as corrupt and people never to trust. The police do sometimes aid and abet criminals and have been described as one of the most corrupt institution in Nigeria. The philosophy of community policing emphasizes partnership, decentralization of authority, and proactivity. The structure of the Nigeria police is very central and their approach to crime fighting is still reactionary rather than proactive. The partnership between the pubic and police in crime lighting is still unrealistic because of the poor public perception of the police. More importantly, the Nigeria police force is built on the traditional culture of force which is used to brutalize the same people that they are expected to protect. This culture of brutality and use of force makes it difficult for the Nigeria police to embrace community policing.

FUTURE OF COMMUNITY POLICING IN NIGERIA

For community policing to have an inroad in Nigeria, the Nigeria police force must have a complete paradigm shift from its traditional model of policing to a more community oriented policing that stresses community partnership, decentralization of powers, and proactive policing. The policing model should be that of partnership with less emphasis on regulatory power and sanctions with greater reliance upon compromise and cooperation that would serve the public better rather than the traditional model of policing. More importantly, the police must improve its public image so that they can earn public trust. This can only be achieved when they show a caring attitude towards the public rather than use of brutal force on them and demanding for money before services are delivered.

Nzeduru is a pastor and security expert based in Lagos.

Editor

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