Perception of Police and Policing: An Investigation of People’s Perception of Police Stop and Search Method of Crime Prevention in Southern Senatorial District of Cross River State, Nigeria
Perception of Police and Policing: An Investigation of People’s Perception of Police Stop and Search Method of Crime Prevention in Southern Senatorial District of Cross River State, Nigeria

Summary/Abstract: This study discussed public perception of police stop-and-search method of policing towards crime prevention. Cross-sectional survey study design, involving the use of qualitative and quantitative methods was adopted. Data was collected from 840 respondents from purposively chosen Local Government Area of the Southern Senatorial District of Cross River State selected from multistage probability and nonprobability methods of sampling. The means of gathering of information was questionnaire which comprised loose and closed-type questioning and unstructured oral interviews. A simple percentage system of analyzing data was employed for the interpretation of the research question while correlation statistics tool was employed to test the research hypothesis. The study revealed that there is a significant relationship between public positive views of police stop-and-search method of crime prevention and police and policing work. The study concluded that, virtually all the examinees generally supported the use of stop-and-searches as a method of policing and police work vis a vis crime prevention as Table 1(a) shows, while reiterating that the manner, and attitude of the officers must change and that there should be reason given for every stop-and-search if it has to be an effective method of policing. Given the results, the subsequent policy suggestions were made which include: Police Service Commission should recommend policies and programmes to decrease the negative effects of stop and search through focusing on improving officer conduct to inculcate in the officers the strict compliance to the principles of procedural justice during police citizen encounters particularly with respect to application of stop and search. This can be achieved through training and retraining of policemen quarterly or yearly to meet with both local and international best practices standard worldwide among others.

• Details
• Contents