Citizens’ accounts of police use of force and its implication for trust in the police

ABSTRACT

Despite a wealth of literature covering police abuse of power and excessive use of force in the developed West, a major challenge in socio-legal literature is the paucity of empirical research that accurately assess the same constructs in post-colonial African society. The few existing studies have shown that the police in developing countries are more likely to abuse their powers and are largely not accountable to the public. The current study presents an important attempt to empirically assess what is known and what needs to be learned to better understand and prevent police abuse and the use of excessive force; and how the use of force variables influence trust in the police. Since there is no single, universally agreed-upon definition of police use of force, in this current study a context-specific constructs that are peculiar to police-citizen relations in Nigeria were adopted for the data analysis. The result confirmed that police abuse and the use of excessive force have negative effect on trust in the police. The implications of these findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Use of force
• trust in police
• police abuse
• Nigeria police

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Professor Manuel Eisner and Dr Justice Tankebe for hosting me at the Violence Research Centre, University of Cambridge while writing up this paper.

I would also like to thank Australian Department of Education for the Endeavour Executive Fellowship that provided the funds to spend 3 months at the University of Cambridge.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Endeavour Executive Fellowship, Australian Department of Education [6660_2018].

Notes on contributors

Oluwagbenga Michael Akinlabi

Oluwagbenga Michael Akinlabi is a recipient of the 2018 Australian Department of Education and Training’ Endeavour Executive Fellowship for three months at the University of Cambridge. He is currently a lecturer in Criminology within the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of New England Australia. He has a PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Griffith University in Australia. He was previously educated in his home country, Nigeria, as well as at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. Michael is a comparative researcher with specific focus on policing, violence, corruption, and accountability in postcolonial African societies.