SMARTER POLICING PARADIGM FOR COMBATING CRIMES AND INSECURITY IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Crime has predominantly increased in Nigeria, criminals have targeted critical national infrastructure, banking sectors, some of the governmental departments, private and public institutions. The need has risen for the law enforcement to adopt a unique strategy of policing in combating and preventing crime in Nigeria. There is a need for a smarter approach to policing that turns away from the traditional reactive style used in the past, to a proactive framework that focuses on employing analysis and criminal intelligence to reduce and prevent prolific recidivist offenders. The main reason for instituting criminal justice system is to prevent, reduce, combat and eliminate crime but in practice, it will be difficult to achieve this goal, due to the lack of cooperation between the criminal justice system officials and other governmental structures, departments and communities, can hinder safety and security around different communities in Nigeria. The study focuses on the evaluation of smarter policing paradigm that can be effective in combating crime in Nigeria. The paper adopted qualitative methodology; an interview technique was used to collect data. Findings reveal that Nigeria lacks intelligence capacities in addressing crime, few personnel are specifically trained on how to operationalize intelligence in addressing crime in Nigeria. Reactive policing is not effective in combating crime. The recommendation includes need to engage officers in specialised intelligence training, should transcend to more proactive strategy and should adopt a smarter policing model to tackle insecurity in Nigeria.