The Police are Not Your Friends: Corrupt Policing and Implication for Trust and Cooperation with the Police

• In Event: International Policing Research

Abstract

At the heart of people’s willingness to cooperate and to trust the police are the ways and manners in which police exercise authority. If the public perceives police as corrupt, unfair, and disrespectful during the exercise of police authority, then the public are likely to distrust the police, become alienated, and by extension non-cooperative with the police. Drawing from 462 participants from a cross-sectional survey in Lagos Nigeria, this study empirically assesses the extent to which everyday problem of corrupt policing affects public trust and willingness to cooperate with the police in Nigeria. This study provides strong empirical evidence that the police are corrupt; and that corrupt policing has significant negative effect on public trust and cooperation with police. The implications of these current findings for policymaking and police practice are discussed.

Keywords: police corruption, predatory policing, trust in the police, cooperation with police; Nigeria police

Author

• Oluwagbenga Michael Akinlabi, University of New England