REGENERATIVE POLICING PROPOSITION (RPP): A PILOT STUDY ON SOCIAL CAPITAL AND POLICE PERFORMANCE IN EPE DIVISION, LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA.
Ogunsoto, Gbenga Babatunde , Agbonifo, John O. and Akinbebije, Damilola
Volume 13 Issue 2
Abstract
This paper formulates and presents initial empirical findings of the Regenerative Policing Proposition (RPP), an interdisciplinary model aimed at improving the police performance by restoring social capital, trust, and institutional legitimacy. As a solution to the long-term problems of poor public trust, lack of accountability, and inefficient community participation in policing systems especially in fast urbanizing areas like Lagos State, Nigeria this study employs a mixed-method pilot study to test the association between social capital and the performance of the police in Epe Division. The study measures the key constructs such as mutual trust, relationships between the police and the community, accountability and transparency, institutional responsiveness, and social capital using a structured questionnaire to 40 participants (35 successful responses). Cronbach alpha coefficients for reliability analysis were found to be between 0.79 and 0.90, which is a high internal consistency. The descriptive and thematic analyses have discovered that trust, reciprocity, and civic participation have a significant effect on perceptions of police legitimacy and police effectiveness, and there are information-sharing, technological integration, and public accountability gaps. The results support the Regenerative Policing Proposition in a preliminary empirical way in the form of a cyclical model that is guided by ethical accountability, regeneration of trust, collaborative interaction, institutional learning and Adaptation, renewing social capital and Sustainable peace and performance back to Ethical Accountablity. The paper provides value to policing research by means of combining the knowledge of social capital, procedural justice, community policing and regenerative development, and presenting a context-specific model that is consistent with Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). The paper concludes by noting the promise of RPP as a scalable model of sustainable policing change in Nigeria and other developing environments, and suggests a need to further confirm these findings with large-scale empirical modeling of the model with advanced statistical methods. Keywords: Regenerative Policing Proposition (RPP), Social Capital, Police Performance, Police Legitimacy, Procedural Justice, Accountability and Transparency, SDG 16.
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