AKU: An African Journal of Contemporary Research

In a nation where there has long been widespread public suspicion and mistrust of the police, implementing community policing, which aims to alter the core essence of police operations, is a challenging and complex task. Community policing, as a strategy of bringing police and public together in order to reduce the level of crime has been severely hampered by the mistrust of the police in Nigeria. This study employed a qualitative survey design in order to establish the effectiveness of community policing in Nigeria's context of insecurity. The study followed Preferred Reporting Items of Systematic reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) guidelines in conducting a systematic review of published articles. Extraction and analysis of information from the selected articles were done thematically. The study revealed that community policing if properly enforced has the potential to drastically reduce the level of insecurity as it empowers the police and the public to work closely together in order to solve the security challenges in the country. The conceptualization of this study was guided by broken windows theory which provided a theoretical model for the study. The broken windows theory emphasizes on the importance of addressing the issues of disorder in order to avert serious challenges such as increased crime levels. This study therefore recommends that the government should invest more in training of police officers on community policing and encourage active participation of the public in order for community policing to be effective in reducing the level of insecurity in Nigeria.

Open Full Text (PDF)