Community-police relationship (community policing) in Liberi

Abstract

The purpose of the research was to do “An Assessment on Community-Police relationship in Liberia “A Case of the Paynesville ELWA Community, Montserrado County as lack of corporation and support by community members due passed history of the police involvement into extra judiciary activities and human rights violation could be recognized as stalling factors that led to the poor community-police relationship in the Paynesville ELWA community, Montserrado County. While, the administration of the Liberia National Police try to develop a workable strategy or strategies by creating awareness on the role of the community in assisting the police on crime prevention through community policing this thesis seeks to do an assessment on communitypolice relationship in Liberia “A case of Paynesville ELWA community, Montserrado County. ” The method used in this research was both Quantitative and Qualitative Methods of data collection and analyze data used is descriptive and the grounded theory techniques. The population used in this study was 400 and the sample size was 40 which represent 10% of the entire study population. The key finding shows that out of the 40 respondents (100%), 28 respondents (72%) of the 40 respondents asserted that the community inhabitants and police have a good relationship and as such they assist the police on law enforcement process in the community compared to 7 respondents (15%) who said that that they have a very poor relationship with the police‟. Still, 5 respondents (13%) asserted that there was „passive relationship‟. At the same time, out of the 40 respondents interviewed, 23 respondents (56%) said „Yes‟ that the community carries out community policing activities in the area whilst 17 respondents (44%) said „No‟ that the community does carry out community policing activities in the area. This means that majority of the respondents asserted that the community inhabitants and the police have a very good relationship and majority respondents said „Yes‟ that the community carries out community policing activities in the area. Finally, the Liberia National Police (LNP) reactivates the Community Policing Forum so as to enable community and the police enhance their relationships as well as discuss pertinent issues relative to the upgrade of security in the community. Therefore, the LNP should ensure a prompt responding process whenever called upon by the community inhabitants on issues of crimes during the process of community-police relationship in the Paynesville ELWA community, Montserrado\County