Abstract:
he study conducted on contribution of community policing strategy in reducing
urban crime in Musoma Municipality. Specifically focuses on the effectiveness of
community policing strategies in reducing the incidence of theft and burglary, impact
of community policing on residents' perceptions of safety and trust in law
enforcement, and roles of community participation in implementing community
policing strategies. This study adopted a case study design and used a sample size of
100 respondents obtained by purposive sampling technique. Data collected by using
questionnaire and interview and analysed by using descriptive analysis for
quantitative data and thematic analysis for qualitative data. Results showed that
community policing was effective approach on reducing crime and enhancing public
safety and the effectiveness showed up that crimes such as theft and burglary
reduced, there were presence of community police so as to increases speed of
preventing crimes and the all repeated offences were prevented. The impacts of
community policing enabled community members to feel safety, community trusted
law enforcement, establishment of good relationship between police and community
members and responsiveness in law enforcement. The role played by community
policing were to correlation community participation in crimes prevention, increased
prevention on suspicious activities and encourage community to prevent crimes. The
study concluded that community policing was effective approach to reducing crime
and enhancing public safety and there was positive impacts on community policing
on perception of safety and trust in law enforcement among residence of Musoma
municipality. There was a crucial role played by community policing and the roles
were to correlation community participation in crimes prevention. The study
recommended that government should develop and implement policies that formalize
the partnership between community members and law enforcement agencies. The
government should implement public awareness campaigns to educate residents
about the benefits of community policing and their role in crime prevention.
