Crime Prevention Through Community Policing Interventions: Evidence from Harar City, Eastern Ethiopia

https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.44206

Melese Teferi Adugna(1*), Tesfaye Zeleke Italemahu(2)

(1) Lecturer of Department of Sociology, Haramaya University
(2) Center for Environment and Development Studies, Addis Ababa University
(*) Corresponding Author

Abstract


In Ethiopia, community policing has been announced ofcially as a national program in 2005 E.C with the impetus to nullify crimes at lower tiers. There have been growing reports of prevailing crimes in Jenila district of Harar city. Accordingly, this study endeavors to scrutinize the practices of community policing and associated challenges in the study site. A mixed research deign was used to fetch out primary and secondary data sets. Hence, the participants’ views were captured through questionnaires, key informant interviews and focused group discussions. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency, bar graph and percentages. The fnding of the study revealed that a greater proportions of the respondents recognized that community policing practices had contributed in preventing crimes; burglary 94 (27%) and robbery 77 (22%) as most frequently recurring and reported types of crimes in the city. While community policing structures and concerned actors operate to smoothly run the programs, there were cropping up predicaments at the grass root levels. Limited awareness among the residents, inadequate fnancial resources and professionally ill-qualifed human power were reported as major obstructions. In the face of increasing crimes, both in terms of intensity and types on the one hand, and intricate challenges to penetrate through on the other hand, the communities of residents aspire to dive deep with a sense of ownership and exploit the opportunities for intensifying the programs stated in community policing programs. Eventually, there was need to move in concerted manner to lessen the impacts of crimes in Jenila district of Harar city.

 

 


Keywords


community policing; crime prevention; eastern Ethiopia; harar city

Full Text:

PDF


References

Akuul, T. (2011). The Role of the Nigerian Police Force in Maintaining Peace and Security in Nigeria. Journal of Social Science and Public Policy, 3.

Aliyu Ahmad Aliyu, M. U. B., Rozilah Kasim David Martin. (2014). Positivist and Non-Positivist Paradigm in Social Science Research: Conflicting Paradigms or Perfect Partners? Journal of Management and Sustainability, 4(3).

Alliance, C. B. (n.d). Crime Prevention Approaches in Africa. ELLA.

Aromaa, K. (2010). International Statistics on Crime and Criminal Justice. M. H. Stefan Harrendorf, Steven. Helsinki.

Atte, T. K. (2011). Assessing Factors that Affect the Implementation of Community Policing In Awassa, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. MA Thesis. University of South Africa.

Brandon C. Welsh, D. P. (2012). The Future of Crime Prevention: Developmental and Situational Strategies.

Brereton, D. (2000). Policing and crime prevention: Improving the product, in Chappell D and Wilson P (eds), Crime and the criminal justice system in Australia: 2000 and beyond. Sydney: Butterworths: 121–136

Brewer, R. (2017). Controlling crime through networks. ANU Press, the Australia National University, Canberra, Australia.

Brunson, A. A. B. A. R. K. (2015). The Police and Public Discourse on “Black-on-Black” Violence. New Perspectives in Policing.

Cameron, M. and Laycock, G. (2002). Crime Prevention in Australia. A. Graycar and P.Grabosky (eds) The Cambridge Handbook of Australian Criminology. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press

Central Statistics Agency (2007). Population and Housing Census: Strategy and Implementation Plan. Addis Ababa: Ethiopia.

Charles Kivunja, A. B. K. (2017). Understanding and Applying Research Paradigms in Educational Contexts. International Journal of Higher Education 6(5), 26-41.

Clarke, M. F. (1998). Opportunity Makes the Thief: Practical theory for crime prevention. Research, Development and Statistics Directorate, Policing and Reducing Crime Unit. London: Crown Copyright.

Cerecina, M. (2012). Where is the Power in Community Policing?. Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management: Harvard Kennedy School.

Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research. University of Nebraska: Lincoln, USA

Cossyleon, J. (2019). Community Policing. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Studies. ResearchGate.

Cox, J. M. (2008). Community Policing and Crime: The Process and Impact of Problem-Solving in Oakland. Oakland: RAND Corporation.

Dahee Kim, S.-W. H. A. Y. J. (2019). Crime Prevention Eect of the Second Generation Crime Prevention through Environmental Design Project in South Korea: An Analysis. Social Sciences.

Denny and Demelash Kassaye (2013). Securing Communities for Development: Community Policing in Ethiopia’s Amhara National Regional State.

Faust, S. W. (1999). Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge University Press.

Fisher-Stewart, G. (2007). Community Policing Explained: A Guide for Local Governments, U.S. Department of Justice.

Firehywot Mulat. (2015). An assessment of Challenges and Prospects of Implementation of Community Policing: the Case Study of Bole Sub-city. MP Thesis. Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

International Association of Crime Analysts. (2018). Social Network Analysis for Law Enforcement (White Paper 2018‐02).

Islam, S. (2018). Community Policing (CP): Challenges on Preventing Crime and Human Security in Bangladesh. Review of Public Administrationand Management, 6(3).

Kriegler, A. (2014). Using social network analysis to profle organized crime. Institute for Security Studies.

Lu Wang, G. L. a. I. (2019). The Spatial and Social Patterning of Property and Violent Crime in Toronto Neighbourhoods: A Spatial-Quantitative Approach. International Journal of Geo-Information, 8(51).

Meadows, K. A. (2003). Questionnaire Design. British Journal of Community Nursing.

Mudiare, F. B. (2013). Community Policing in Nigeria: Challenges and Prospects. American International Journal of Contemporary Research.

Ofce for National Statistics England and Wales. (2013). Property Crime - Overview. London: Crown copyright.

Odinkalu, C. A. (2005). When did the police become your friend? Changing roles of civil society in promoting safety and security in Nigeria. E. E. O. Alemika& I. C. Chukwuma (Eds.), Crime and policing in Nigeria: Challenges and options (pp. 28-44). Lagos: CLEEN Foundation

Peter Charles Sinclair Taylor, M. N. D. M. (2013). Educational research paradigms: From positivism to multiparadigmatic. Journal for Meaning-Centered Education, 1-14.

Phillip Bowen, R. R., Andrew Pilkington (2017). Mixed Methods-Theory and Practice. Sequential, Explanatory Approach. International Journal of Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods, 5(2), 10-27.

PTAK, J. (2017). Social Network Analysis, Crime Prevention, and Human Rights.

Putt, J. (2010). Community policing in Australia. Australian Institute of Criminology.

Riley, D. (2007). The Paradox of Positivism. Social Science History, 31(1).

Scotland, J. (2012). Exploring the Philosophical Underpinnings of Research: Relating Ontology and Epistemology to the Methodology and Methods of the Scientifc, Interpretive, and Critical Research Paradigms. English Language Teaching, Vol. 5.

Sherman, L. and Eck, J. (2002). Policing for Crime Prevention. L. Sherman, D. Farrington, B. Welsh & D. MacKenzie (eds) Evidence-Based Crime Prevention London: Routledge Somerville, P. (nd). Understanding Community Policing. University of Lincoln, UK.

Sozer, M. A. (2008). Assessing the Performance of Community Policing: the Effect of Community Policing Practices on Crime Rates. Dissertation. Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Thanh, N. C. (2015). The Interconnection Between Interpretivist Paradigm and Qualitative Methods in Education. American Journal of Educational Science, 24-27.

Theresa, H. (2016). Modern Crime Prevention Strategy. Uma, K. E., and Eboh, F. E. (2013). Corruption, economic development, and emerging markets: Evidence from Nigeria. Asian Journal of Management Sciences and Education, 3(3), 56-67.

Wilson, S. G. (1988). Crime Prevention: Theory and Action. Canberra : Australian Institute of Criminology.

Wycoff, L. F. (2004). Community Policing. Washington: Police Executive Research Forum, The Annie E. Casey Foundation.



DOI: https://doi.org/10.22146/jh.44206

Article Metrics

Abstract views : 7557 | views : 3431

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.




Copyright (c) 2019 Jurnal Humaniora

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.