: : CLEEN FOUNDATION. Justice Sector Reform

BUILDING SYNERGY BETWEEN POLICE AND MEMBERS OF COMMUNITY FOR EFFECTIVE POLICING IN NIGERIA (COMMUNITY POLICING AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT)

Efforts by the police over the years to shore up their public image through the creation of a Police Public Relations Department and the establishment of Police Community Relations Committees (PCRC) in all police formations have not yielded any dividend as relations between the police and the people remain frosty leading to violence in some cases. The Police-Community Partnership Project is designed to bring the police closer to the people and give the people a role in setting policing priorities.

In the last three years CLEEN had established fourteen Police-Community Partnership Forums in the following local government areas. They include Ahiazu Mbaise in Imo State, Umuahia South in Abia State, Onitsha North in Anambra State, and Udenu in Enugu and Ipokia in Ogun State. Others are Abak in Akwa Ibom State, Ibadan Northeast in Oyo State, Alkaleri in Bauchi State, Riyom in Plateau State, Numann in Adamawa, Sabongari in Kaduna State and Adavi local government area in Kogi State.

With the lessons learnt in the fourteen forums in the fourteen states of the federation, especially in the area why it was not a huge success CLEEN decided to produce a model of community policing in Lagos state which could be transported to other states at last. The decision to do it in Lagos state is informed by the proximity of CLEEN secretariat to the state and its close relationship with the police in the state. It is a two year program with two phases of the project. We are almost coming to the end of the phase 1-research and survey phase meant to produce a complimentary statistics on crime to the official statistics. This we did in collaboration with the federal office of statistics. The preliminary report of the survey findings has already been made public and the two LGAs selected where we will implement our community policing program.