Assessing the Contributions of Community Policing Strategy in Urban Crime Reduction in Musoma Municipality, Tanzania

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.