EFFECT OF PREDICTIVE POLICING AND VICTIMS’ REPORTING CRIME CONTROL STRATEGIES ON THE PREVALENCE OF ARMED ROBBERY AND KIDNAPPING: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN NIGERIA AND GHANA
Abstract
Criminologists have identified crime control strategy as a major tool in appraising the effectiveness of police departments in checking the prevalence of crime. Data on the violent crimes of armed robbery and kidnapping between Nigeria and Ghana is worrisome, and this has influenced the effectiveness of the police of these two countries; while it has been observed that the Nigeria Police is faced with fundamental and operational problems in her crime control strategies, Ghana Police have achieved greater result in theirs with lower rate and trend in armed robbery and kidnapping. The aim of this study was to identify and assess the crime control strategies of the police and their effect in checking the prevalence of armed robbery and kidnapping in a comparative analysis between Nigeria and Ghana, from 2015 to 2018. It adopted a mixed research design of content analysis of crime data obtained from annual police report of Nigeria and Ghana between 2015 and 2018 and interview schedule. 20 respondents from the police headquarters of both countries were selected as sample, using sampling to redundancy technique (saturation) and interviewed as key persons to give insight into the strategies, which have yielded different success rates and the prevalence, rate and trend of armed robbery and kidnapping in both countries. Findings revealed that the Ghana Police Service to a great extent adopt the predictive policing, and have more effective victims survey and citizens who are willing to report crimes to the police with a more robust crime data base than the Nigeria Police Force. It is recommended that Nigeria should enhance more confidence building techniques and reform the police in line with the predominant cultural values of the society.
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