Residents’ Perception on Community Policing in Ilorin Metropolis, Kwara State, Nigeria.

Abstract

The fundamental principles of community policing prescribe that there should evolve a platform whereby members of public are willing to cooperate and build partnerships with the appropriate authorities and this is achievable by allowing them access to security decisions that impact on them. Ex-post facto research design was adopted for the study while simple random sample technique was used to select 300 participants in Ilorin metropolis. The instrument used to illicit information from the respondents was tagged Community Policing Inventory with reliability value of 0.75. Findings from the study shows that there is a significant correlation between community policing and crime prevention (r ₍₂₉₈₎ = 0.811; p<0.05), there is no statistically significant discrepancy between male and female community members observed factors impeding community policing and crime prevention (t _{298} = 1.214, p>0.05), there is no statistically significant discrepancy between old and young community members observed factors impeding community policing and crime prevention (t _{298} = 1.273, p>0.05), there is a statistically significant discrepancy between educated and uneducated community members observed factors impeding community policing and crime prevention in Ilorin metropolis, Kwara state (t _{298} = 1.622, p<0.05). Thus, it was recommended that there is need to foster transparency and accountability among security officers and members of community policing.