Strategies for improving community policing in Nigeria through Community Informatics Social Network

Abstract

Community policing can be used to actively and proactively address the root causes of crimes and insecurity in any community. In view of this, Nigeria police launched a pilot community policing scheme in 2004. Although the police recorded some success stories, yet, the rising wave of tension and insecurity in various communities across the nation calls for a more effective community policing strategy. In this paper, Community Informatics Social Network for Facilitated Community Policing (CISN4FCP) is proposed. Online GeoHubNet Community Structure (OGCS) is used in CISN4FCP to organize online geo-community for local community in the various states in Nigeria. Furthermore, for each online geocommunity, an online community hub for facilitated community policing is established. With respect to the OGCS and the online community hub, the paper presented various strategies that the facilitator firm will adopt to actively and proactively address the root causes of crimes that are being witnessed in various communities across the nation.