Community Policing Framework for Engendering Sustainable Peace:  Case of Ondo State Nigeria

Olojo, Oludare Jethro¹; Olojuolawe, Sunday Rufus²; Adewumi, Moradeke Grace³

¹Department of Science Education, BamideleOlumilua University of Education Science and Technology, Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria.

²Department of Industrial Technology Education, Bamidele Olumilua University of Education Science and Technology, Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria.

³Department of Computing and Information Science, Bamidele Olumilua University of Education Science and Technology, Ikere-Ekiti, Nigeria.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.51244/IJRSI.2024.1103024

Received: 25 February 2024; Revised: 01 March 2024; Accepted: 06 March 2024; Published: 07 April 2024

ABSTRACT

The proposed community policing framework is aimed at promoting sustainable peace in Nigeria. The framework focuses on engaging and empowering community members to take an active role in maintaining peace and security within their localities. Through collaborative efforts between law enforcement agencies and community members, this framework implements a holistic approach toward addressing issues of crime and violence. This includes creating strong partnerships, fostering trust between community members and law enforcement, and implementing preventive measures such as community-based awareness programs. The framework also highlights the importance of incorporating gender perspectives in community policing. By addressing the unique needs and experiences of women and other marginalized groups, this framework aims to promote inclusivity and equity in maintaining peace and security. Furthermore, it emphasizes the involvement of women in decision-making processes and their role in building resilient communities. One of the key elements of this framework is community engagement and participation. Involving community members in the planning and implementation of peacebuilding initiatives promotes a sense of ownership and responsibility within the community. This leads to sustainable and long-term solutions to security challenges.

Moreover, the framework recognizes the importance of addressing underlying social, economic, and political factors that contribute to crime and violence. This includes issues such as poverty, unemployment, and social exclusion. By addressing these root causes, the framework aims to create a more peaceful and prosperous society for all. The proposed community policing framework presents a comprehensive and proactive approach towards promoting sustainable peace in Nigeria. By empowering communities, incorporating gender perspectives, and addressing underlying issues, this framework has the potential to create a safer and more secure environment for all Nigerians.

Keywords: Community, Police, Framework, Sustainability, Peace

INTRODUCTION

The increasing menace of the men of the underworld has been a source of security concerns in Nigeria.  Life and properties are no longer secured. Thus, every citizen lives in an atmosphere of palpable apprehension and suspicion. The security agencies seemed to have been overwhelmed by the activities of terrorists, kidnappers, armed robbers, cultists, and their co-travelers in the crime. They are branded in sophisticated weapons and most cases take advantage of the knowledge of local terrains to outsmart the security agencies. Therefore, this study seeks to bridge the gap created by the non-active involvement of the local communities to achieve maximum security gains. The security of life and properties would be more achieved when there is the active involvement of the people. Therefore, this study intended to develop a community policing framework that will engender sustainable peace in Ondo State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study intends to identify the factors that will promote community policing in Ondo State, develop the framework, and give the hierarchy using the Rasch Measurement Model. Thus, the consensus of the experts’ responses and item difficulty levels was obtained.  The study involved critical stakeholders in the Police Force and the community leaders in Ondo State.

The survey research that employed the use of Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods was employed. Survey research is the type of research that studies large populations where samples are related, to discover relative incidence, conveyance, and interrelations of sociological and psychological (Blenker, Elmholdt, Frederiksen, Korsgaard, & Wagner, 2014; Creswell, 2013; Creswell John. w, 2014).

LITERATURE

The Nigeria Police Force is probably the most prominent and accessible agency to civilians, although there are other Nigerian authorities that police citizens’ and even foreigners’ affairs within the country’s borders. These agencies include the National Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), the States Security Services (SSS), the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), and National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA. Over the years, there have been many processes of police reform which, according to Rauch and (De Maillard & Terpstra, 2021), still are currently underway, or about to commence. Current police practices are predicated on the notion that proactive policing will not only reduce crime but also enhance police-community relations (Garavan, Morley, Gunnigle, & Collins, 2001). To attain the above goal, community policing was implemented along these lines.

Given the many challenges and constraints confronting the Nigerian Police Force, which have negatively impacted police image and police-community relations, the introduction of community policing strategy as a cardinal initiative in the evolving agenda of police reform since the transition to democracy was necessitated (Azodo, 2014) Community policing is a type of policing that involves police and community people working together to solve problems to improve public safety. In the 1990s, community policing was widely implemented by law enforcement agencies to increase community trust and leverage police resources by enlisting community members’ voluntary cooperation in public safety initiatives (IKENGA, 2023).

The main reasons for taking this proactive approach, according to Azodo, (2014)are to create a police force that is transparent, fair, neutral, accountable, and responsive to public perceptions and expectations while also developing other positive and more effective strategies outside of traditional policing; which is exclusively based on law enforcement and tends to be reactive. Latent factors also play a role in the formation of community policing. According to to Coquilhat, (2008), community policing arose as a result of two unforeseen effects of a modernizing policing profession. First, technological advancements such as police radios and patrol vehicles altered police-community ties.

METHODOLOGY

The study will use a mixed-method approach, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative research methods. According to (Johnson, 2014) qualitative research uses data gathered from first-hand observation, interviews, questionnaires (on which participants write descriptively), focus groups, and participant observation, recordings made in natural settings, documents, and artifacts.

The sequential exploratory mixed method will be employed for the study. The qualitative phase involved document analysis and interview protocol. The sample for the qualitative study was purposive. The study is targeting a total of twenty – five (25) participants from the initial phase of the study. This phase was analyzed using Nvivo software and thematic analysis to obtain the theme for the quantitative aspect/phase of the study. The theme from the qualitative phase was used to develop the items for the instrument.

The findings for this research question were approached through document analysis and interviews. The majority of the documents used are journal articles. The Google Scholar was adopted as the search engine. The search string consisted of all the articles that discuss community policing both within and outside Nigeria. This was aimed at getting a comprehensive list of the constructs for the interview phase of the study. The exclusion is those articles that were published more than 5 years ago and those whose discussions were not directly related to community policing.  A total of 150 Journal articles were downloaded and after filtration, a total of 50 journal articles were available for the study. In achieving this feat, the materials were constructed into a meta-analysis table. The research phase is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Sequential Exploratory Mixed methods design

FINDINGS

The constructs derived from the document analysis are communication, consultation, participation, sustained engagement, teamwork, pro-activeness, problem-solving, commitment, raid-stop and search, intelligence gathering ….

The main source of the constructs is a Journal article with Google Scholar as the Search Engine. This is shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Some Extracts from Document Analysis

Journal Article

Findings for Research Question II:

What are the constructs and sub-constructs of community policing from the perspective of the critical stakeholders?

Interview findings from the perspective of the critical stakeholders.

The interview protocol involved experts from the Nigeria Police Force. The responses of the experts to the questions are shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Responses of Participants

The themes from the interview show that information gathering, collaboration, intelligence, mapping, problem-solving, communication, and consultation are critical to effectively policing Ondo State. The summary of the findings is shown in Table 3.

Table 3: Summary of Interview Findings Regarding Community Policing

It will be observed that all the constructs are considered worthy of inclusion in the community policing framework for Ondo State.

However, a broader test of the data quantitatively using the Rasch Measurement model shows that only 3 sub-constructs under information gathering and problem-solving are good for inclusion in the final framework. The findings of the analysis are shown in the summary of the measured item

SUMMARY OF 4 MEASURED ITEM

——————————————————————————-

| TOTAL                         MODEL         INFIT        OUTFIT    |

| SCORE     COUNT     MEASURE   ERROR      MNSQ   ZSTD   MNSQ   ZSTD |

|—————————————————————————–|

| MEAN      42.0      17.0         .00    1.03       .69    -.7    .53    -.4 |

| S.D.               9.9        .0        5.86     .67       .67    2.1    .57     .8 |

| MAX.      53.0      17.0        8.21    2.18      1.81    2.9   1.48     .8 |

| MIN.         29.0      17.0       -6.15     .64       .01   -2.3    .01   -1.2 |

|—————————————————————————–|

| REAL RMSE   1.26 TRUE SD    5.73  SEPARATION  4.54  ITEM   RELIABILITY  .95 |

|MODEL RMSE   1.23 TRUE SD    5.73  SEPARATION  4.67  ITEM   RELIABILITY  .96 |

| S.E. OF ITEM MEAN = 3.39                                                    |

——————————————————————————-

MINIMUM EXTREME SCORE:      1 ITEM

DELETED:     43 ITEM

UMEAN=.0000 USCALE=1.0000

Statistics Regarding Dimensionality

TABLE 23.0 COMMUNITY POLICING.sav                ZOU015WS. TXT Feb 19 21:20 2024

INPUT: 96 PERSON  48 ITEM REPORTED: 17 PERSON  5 ITEM  4 CATS WINSTEPS 3.74.0

——————————————————————————–

Table of STANDARDIZED RESIDUAL variance (in Eigenvalue units)  — Empirical —    Modeled

Total raw variance in observations     =         43.2 100.0%         100.0%

  Raw variance explained by measures   =         39.2  90.7%          89.7%

    Raw variance explained by persons  =         26.4  61.2%          60.5%

    Raw Variance explained by items    =         12.7  29.5%          29.1%

  Raw unexplained variance (total)     =          4.0   9.3% 100.0%   10.3%

    Unexplained variance in 1st contrast =          3.1   7.1%  76.7%

    Unexplained variance in 2nd contrast =           .9   2.2%  23.3%

    Unexplained variance in 3rd contrast =           .0    .0%    .0%

Table 4: Model for Community Policing

The fit item for the proposed framework for engendering sustainable peace in Ondo State is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Propose Framework for Sustainable Peace in Ondo State

DISCUSSION

A major contribution of this study is its ability to produce a framework suitable for enhancing community policing in Ondo State. 8 main constructs were generated for the study with a total of 48 sub-constructs. Treatment shows that not all the items are suitable for inclusion in the final framework. Only the items with a mean of less than zero are fit for inclusion(John M Linacre, 2002; Omar, Rodzo’an, Saidfudin, Zaharim, & Basri, 2010; Saidfudin et al., 2010). Consequently, only Item TIN4 (-.22.24), PRS4 (-6.15), and TWK4 (-4.91) fit for inclusion in the final framework.  The analysis of the findings shows that not all the constructs are suitable for inclusion in the framework. This might not be unconnected with construct overlapping or the possibilities of its existence in the available policing architecture framework.  The construct that can be included in the final framework must have its mean below the threshold of zero (J.M. Linacre, 2002; John M Linacre, 2002, 2011). Consequently, out of the 48 items reported, only 3 items have a mean below 0. These are INT4 (ability to exceed expectations), PRS4 (ability to plan and take ownership of problems and TWK4 (ability to interact professionally with superiors and other co-workers). Exceeding expectations is synonymous with intelligence gathering leading to outstanding performance (Abdulmunem, 2023; Elizabeth, 2020; International Labour Organization, 2020; Kappeler, 2015a; Oikhala, 2021; Young, 2016). This form of commitment is required to drive policing activities at the community level.  Similarly, adequate planning for the mitigation of the mysterious acts of the men of the underworld is essential. Good training and provision of essential security material and weaponry will spur the morale of the men and women deployed to the frontline of action. Many studies have justified the importance of problem-solving in ensuring peace and stability in the society (Fadila & Mohd, 2022; International Labour Organization, 2020; Jollands, 2015; Jonathan C., 2018; Kappeler, 2015b; Khalid, Adha, Hamid, & Sailin, 2014; Mohammed & Ismail, 2016; Olojuolawe, Bt, Amin, & Babatunde, 2020; Olojuolawe, Bt, Amin, Latif, & Sani, 2019; Ordu & Nnam, 2017; Patrikakis et al., 2018; Sun et al., 2020; Vargas-Hernánez & Alcántara Salcedo, 2020). Professionalism and teamwork will help to reduce the menace of criminals in our communities. The policemen deserve better training in the handling of tools and working with the communities as partners. This is important in keeping the society safe. The interaction with the police officers in the first phase of the study shows the level of frustration among the rank and file. The lamentation was in the aspect of training and welfare. These two factors no doubt will diminish the commitment of the officer to duty. There is an urgent need to make them happier. The extortion on the road will vanish if they are not neglected.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Constant study on phenomenal issues berths immediate and far-reaching solutions. This study has been able to isolate what is in existence for community policing and what has to be done to have sustainable peace in Nigeria. Good training to boost the professionalism of the officer is very important. The welfare of the officers must not be toyed with. Their jobs involve life and death. The mantra ‘police are your friend’ must be seen in action for the citizens to be able to divulge information that would help the intelligence-gathering drive of the police.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We acknowledged the Tertiary Trust Fund organization for sponsoring this work. Our hearts of gratitude go to Professor Olufemi Adeoluwa for his unrelenting efforts for the development of others and finally, we appreciate the university Center for Research and Development (CERAD) and its director for being a good motivator.

DECLARATION STATEMENT

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