An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Community Policing Forums in Managing Crime in Thyolo Malawi

Author(s): Austin Steven Nsiyamphanje, Dr. Mohamed Yasir Arafath and Dr. T Velmurugan

Abstract:

The concept of Community Policing was embraced by the Malawi Government as a vehicle to encourage Police and Public involvement in managing crimes. Malawi Police Service benefited grasped community policing since 1994, but more of it has been ordinary Community Policing, which was characterized by low citizen support due to need of assets (Mutupha & Zhu, 2022). Community Policing may be a reasoning administration fashion and organizational plan that advances proactive issue tackling and Police-Community associations to address the causes of wrongdoing and fear as well as other community issues. 
In 1994, the Malawi Police Service benefit formalized the foundation of the Community Police Forum (CPFs) at Traditional Authority, Group Village Headman and Village levels. The MPS Act 12 of 2010sections 119-122 made a formal arrangement for a partnership between the Police and the Community in satisfying the requirements of the community regarding policing. CPF aims at ensuring that they are taking portion in security and security of their region whereby police responsibility straightforwardness and viability in overseeing wrongdoing advancing participation between the benefit and the community in satisfying the community's needs with respect to policing and promoting communication between the police and the community. It was set up to preserve a partnership between the Police and the communities, to together recognize needs and unravel issues related to crime, disorder, fear, poor police-community relation and service delivery. Subsequently the policies modern vision of policing was presented by setting up CPF at each Traditional Authorities, Group and Village heads throughout the country. The implementation of community policing through CPFs has brought to bear the fruit at National, Regional, local and Community levels. This paper aims to assess the effectiveness of CPF in managing crimes. The Qualitative research method was employed, and data were collected from 60 participants through face-to-face survey interviews, focus group discussion and questionnaire. The research revealed that CPF is effective in managing crime. The study recommends emphasis on common goals, bridging the gap between CPFs and Community Interests, trust reconstruction, public awareness and campaigns on CPF, establishment on new and revamping of weak CPFs as one way of mitigating crimes, and improves allocation of resources for CPFs.

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Pages: 49-54     |    2 View     |    0 Download