The maxim that ‘the Police are the public and the
public are the Police, Police being members of the public that are paid to give full attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen, in the interests of community welfare and existence’gives a deep insight into the necessity of community integration in crime management. Realities have however, shown the opposite in recent time.  The partnership which should consolidate collectivism in tackling a common social ill-crime is usually lacking.
More often than not, the police is seen as distant government agency which has a coercive omnibus mandate to solve crime riddles in the society.  Faced with this, the community remains alienated and uncooperative to the police who will naturally rely mainly on crime detection and investigation in an uncooperative environment.  The result is usually poor results and unsolved crimes.
Conscious of this missing link and consequential failure in crime management, experts sought for more result-oriented strategy in crime control and management in an ever increasingly insecure world.
The history of the role of Police strongly indicates that as societies began increasing in diversity and complexity, policing systems based on self-policing and individual responsibility deteriorated. It has been submitted that generally, communities have gradually abdicated their role in peace keeping and law enforcement and have increasingly expected the Police to take on these responsibilities which were once a citizen’s civic duty.  There has also been increasing pressure on members of various Police agencies to intervene in civil matters.
Therefore, the emerging role of the Police, globally, in the 1990s was one characterized by expansion and change.  As noted by some experts, there is considerable uncertainty on the part of both the Police and public about the role of the Police. To achieve peace and security, requires that the Police and the community must work together to define and develop solutions to problems of crime and deviance.  This is because crime prevention is a two way relationship involving the Police and the community.
Consequently, officers and men of the Police force have the responsibility and obligation to educate the public about the many causes of crime and the inability of the Police, acting alone or on their own, to control crime.  It is therefore questionable whether the Police in Nigeria and indeed other countries of the world should be the sole agency for social control at the expense of local residents.  This monopoly on social control by the Police has its genesis in early policing.
Historically, crime prevention worldwide, and indeed in post colonial Nigeria, was considered to be the sole responsibility of the Police and this historical legacy is still evident in the form of the dedicated police officer and the ranting of many local police officers who are averse to change.
This historical antecedent is firmly rooted in the work of Sir Robert Peel and the Police Metropolitan Act of 1829 in London, England. Peel opined that a special body of men was needed to maintain law and order.  There is now evidence from many researches conducted by metropolitan police units such as those in the U.S.A and Great Britain that effective crime prevention can only be achieved through co-operation between the Police and the community.
For example, by the early 1980s, the Conservative Party in the U.K. showed a definitive focus on a community-based understanding of crime prevention.  This became quite evident in Home Office Circular number 8/84 which stated that crime prevention was no longer, only or simply, an issue to be addressed by the Police.
Furthermore, a Scottish circular on the same issue stated, “Just as the incidence of crime can affect the whole community, so too its prevention is a task for the community”.
The change in emphasis from the Police to the community, in metropolitan countries, crime prevention policy seems to reflect two assumptions.  First, a new and probably deeper understanding on the causes of crime and subsequently how it might be communities and the role they should play in policy formulation with regards to crime management and law enforcement.
In Nigeria, it should be noted that pre-colonial law enforcement was communally based with significant efficiency that convinced the British to consolidate on communal policing for sometime before the constabulary based institutional policing of colonial and post colonial Nigeria.  What can easily be deduced is that with institutional policing came institutional defects in a society built on communal and primordial attachments.  Community policing therefore has some level of ‘Africaness’ albeit “Nigerianess’ which should be properly harnessed in the business of law enforcement and crime management.
The concept of community policing is usually misconstrued even by officers and men of the Nigeria Police force.  Some, out of deliberate ignorance, while for others out of institutional arrogance and monopolistic ego about law enforcement.  It is therefore pertinent to briefly review the concept.
The community policing department is meant to function as a community effort between law enforcement and the community, which seek to identify problems of concerns to communities and work toward finding solutions to those problems.  Attempts have therefore been made to have the community police officers and the communities work together to solve mutually defined problems through a deliberate effort aimed at reducing crime, violence, fear, insecurity and community decay. However, these attempts have yielded minimal result apparently due to institutional bottlenecks and proper domestication of community policing to reflect Nigerian realities.
Because community policing  is more of a concept than a model, it is needful to caution against the importation of a particular model of community policing from one society into another without adequate modifications to cater for the peculiarities of the society.  It is a series of principles which underpin policing, and the application of those principles will differ from place to place, even within one country, to take account of the different cultures, religions, social mores, traditional and informal structures.
Daniel is of the Novena University, Ogume, Delta State.

Ngboawaji Daniel