Residents’ Awareness, Understanding And Support For PoliceCommunity Partnership In Crime Control In Ishielu Local Government Area, Ebonyi State, South-East, Nigeria

ABSTRACT : There has been a call to search for effective strategy to control crime in the society because ofthe inability of Nigeria police to control crime. The Nigeria police in this regard introduced police-communitypartnership as the newest strategy in crime control which is believed to succeed where other strategies failed dueto its inherent inclusiveness in attending to neighbourhood problems. To this end, this paper examined the levelof awareness, understanding and support for police-community partnership in crime control by residents ofIshielu Local Government Area, Ebonyi State, South-East, Nigeria. The study is anchored on broken windowstheory and empowerment theory. The study adopted mixed methods design. The sample size of 349 wasgenerated using Fisher Lang, Stockel and Townsend method of obtaining sample size . The multi-stagesampling procedure was adopted in selecting respondents for the study. Questionnaire schedule was used tocollect quantitative data while in-depth interviews were used to collect qualitative data. The quantitative datawere processed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Windows, version 17. Also, descriptivestatistics like frequency tables, simple percentages and graphic illustrations were used to analyze the quantitativedata while manual content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. Findings of the study indicate thatmajority of the residents were not aware of police-community partnership in crime control. They also indicatedsupport of police-community partnership in controlling crime in the neighbourhood because members of thecommunity can easily identify a criminal and draw police attention. The study therefore recommended amongothers that the police should create necessary awareness about police-community partnership, especially in therural areas through constant seminars and workshops. Also, government should establish neighbourhood watchgroups in all communities to serve as direct link between the rural communities and the police.

KEYWORDS: Awareness, Community partnership, Crime, Crime control, Police