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POLICE-PUBLIC RELATIONS AS A POTENT TOOL FOR COMBATING CRIME, INSECURITY, AND SOCIAL DISORDER IN NIGERIA
ABSTRACT: For quite long now, some commentators have oftentimes been lured into confusing the concept and practice of police-public relations with that of police-community relations, community policing, policemedia relations or local vigilantism. Against this backdrop, therefore, this paper examined the state of police– public relations in Nigeria with special focus on how it could be deployed as a potent tool for fighting crime and preventing social disorder in the country. The paper adopted a research methodology of review of extant related literature on the fields of security, public, and policing backed by judgmental content analysis technique. The paper made a number of interesting findings. Prominent among this findings included the fact that Police authorities in Nigeria since 1930, the force was established had made efforts to forge a strong relationship with the public it serves including establishment of such structures and mechanisms like Police Public Complaints Bureau, Police Community Relations Committees and various organs of community-policing projects scattered all over the country. In spite of these efforts, police–public relations in the country had remained sordidly sour, conflictual, and unredeeming. Again, the paper also identified a number of structural, institutional, and attitudinal factors that are responsible for the deteriorating gap in the relationship between the police in Nigeria and members of the public they are hired to serve. These factors include systemic corruption, the very nature of policing in a once colonized state like Nigeria, inappropriate use of lethal force, extrajudicial killings, and intimidation. Others are extortion, illegal arrest and detention, poor funding and lack of adequate training or education, among other ills. Finally, the study made a number of recommendations, as a way forward which included greater emphasis on awareness campaigns to sanitize the police force to be appreciated by members of the public, that NPPRD should be made autonomous and public relations professionals recruited into its fold; rigorous background check of recruits in order to weed out persons of questionable character at the point of entry; and design of curriculum that would inculcate modern policing ideals and democratic values in police rank and file, among others
Keywords: Police–Public Relations, Nigeria Police Force, Members of the Public, NPPRD, Policing, Corruption, Extra-Judicial Killings.