Prospects of Community Crime Control Initiatives in an Era of Terrorism: Lessons from Lagos
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Date
2014
Authors
Adejoh, P.E.
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Abstract
Terrorism has arguably become one of the foremost security challenges besetting Nigeria today. Not only has the
country lost so much interms of human and material resources to several terrorist attacks, the social and political
colourations of this phenomenon have become the newest threat to Nigeria’s corporate existence. Although the
deployment of the combined team of the armed forces, the police, and allied state security services by
government has recorded some successes, it is believed that much more successes would have been recorded if
this response took the local people into confidence, especially because in many cases, the insurgents live and
operate among these people. Against this backdrop therefore, and drawing from the success stories of the
neighbourhood crime control groups in Lagos State, this paper explores the prospects of community crime
control initiatives in fighting terrorism. The paper is anchored on the twin theories of community participation
and partnership policing, and relies on data generated through indepth interviews and focus group discussions
from purposively selected members of identified community crime control groups, Police personnel, community
leaders and members across four Local Government Areas of Lagos State. The paper advocates the enlisting of
community based crime control groups in the crusade against terrorism because of their closeness to the people
and the enormous goodwill they enjoy. This way, the government would make the crusade against terrorism
more participatory and inclusive aside engendering a sense of identification with and continuing responsibility
for the exercise
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Staff publications
Keywords
Terrorism , Informal crime control , Nigeria , Security challenges , Research Subject Categories::SOCIAL SCIENCES::Social sciences::Sociology
Citation
Adejoh, P. E. (2014). Prospects of Community Crime Control Initiatives in an Era of Terrorism: Lessons from Lagos State, Nigeria. Prospects, 4(10).