Is the Public Willing to Help the Nigerian Police During the Boko Haram Crisis? A Look at Moderating Factors

Abstract

This paper sought the opinion of 200 Nigerians on their willingness to cooperate with the police during the Boko Haram crisis. Public perceptions of police effectiveness during the crisis, residence location, gender and religious affiliation were used as moderators. Data was analysed using an explanatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling. Results indicated a strong association between perceived effectiveness and willingness to report to the police with respondents who question the effectiveness of the police being less likely to be willing to report criminal activity about Boko Haram. Further to this, the impact of religion on willingness to report was at least partially mediated by perceived effectiveness of the police with the results showing that Christian respondents perceived the police as less effective. Females and those living in the north were significantly less willing to report criminal activity to the police. The findings are discussed in relation to the BH crises and directions for future research are given.

Linking Organizational Justice to Organizational Commitment Among Nigerian Police Officers

“…Police corruptive and abusive behaviors and low effectiveness in criminal investigation have led to poor police–community relations exemplified by uncooperative public attitudes toward and fear and mistrust of the police (Zumve, 2012). A recent study showed that people who cast doubt on the Nigerian police’s effectiveness were less likely to report criminal activity about the terrorist group of Boko Haram (Elntib et al, 2018). A strained relationship between the police and the public makes community policing a failed reform in Nigeria (Zumve, 2012).…”

Trust in the police and willingness to report crimes. A systematic literature review based on Web of Science

“…A kriminológiai szakirodalom hosszú ideig evidensnek vette a rendőrségbe vetett bizalom és a feljelentési hajlandóság közötti kapcsolatot is (Kääriäinen & Sirén, 2011), korábban azonban csak szórványosan kutatták az összefüggést empirikus módszerekkel (Fishman, 1979;Bennett & Wiegand, 1994;Sunshine & Tyler, 2003;Goudriaan, Lynch & Nieuwbeerta, 2004;Goudriaan, Wittebrood & Nieuwbeerta, 2006;Davis & Hendricks, 2007;Tyler & Fagan, 2008;Tankebe, 2009;Slocum, Taylor, Brick & Esbensen, 2010;Tyler, Schulhofer & Huq, 2010). Az elmúlt öt-tíz évben azonban egyre több kutatás jelent meg a témát vizsgálva (Kääriäinen & Sirén, 2011;Murphy & Cherney, 2011;Kochel, Parks & Mastrofski, 2013;Semukhina, 2014;Murphy & Barkworth, 2014;Sargeant, Murphy & Cherney, 2014;Tsushima & Hamai, 2015;Kruger et al, 2016;Tyler, 2001;Tankebe, 2016;Van Damme, 2016;Karakus, 2017;Khondaker, Wu & Lambert, 2017;Murphy et al, 2017;Slocum, 2018;Wiedlitzka, Mazerolle, Fay-Ramirez & Miles-Johnson, 2018;Boateng, 2018;Murphy & Mazerolle, 2018;Griffiths, 2018;Elntib, Nass, Ioannou, Ryan & Christiansen, 2018;Özaşçilar, Narli, N & Öztürk, 2018;Sun, Li, Wu & Hu, 2018;Kwak, Dierenfeldt & McNeeley, 2019;Rengi...…”

Explaining job satisfaction and voluntary assistance among Nigerian police officers

“…Perhaps, an easy way to gauge the outlook of police-community relations in Nigeria is to consider the difficulty of entrenching community policing in modern-day Nigerian policing (Zumve, 2012). People who cast doubt on the Nigerian police's effectiveness were less likely to report criminal activity about the terrorist group of Boko Haram (Elntib et al, 2018), limiting the police's efforts in trying to build up community-based, effective crime prevention programs.…”