(NAN)
A legal practitioner, Mrs Maimuna Sheriff, has advised that in addition to the Police Community Relations Committee (PCRC) the police should involve road transport unions, operators of the hospitality industry and other associations in crime prevention.
Sheriff, who is the Executive Director Centre for Gender-Based Violence Advocacy, gave the advice in her presentation on Saturday in Yola at a PCRC National Capacity Building Workshop for Zone 3, Adamawa and Taraba.
The theme of the workshop was ‘Community Policing In Our Society’.
Sheriff said transport unions and hospitality industry personnel were always interacting with members of the public and they knew most of the places where crimes were being committed.
According to her, they also hear a lot of stories from their customers, passengers and those patronizing their services.
“The police should build on mutual understanding through partnership and trust and develop confidence within and outside the services.
“Community policing will enable effective management of the community problem base,’’ she said.
Sheriff called on members of the PCRC to understand that community policing is all about partnership and engagement to ensure security.
“The police and the citizens are to work together as partners in the course of identifying crimes and effectively tackling them.
“In tackling problems, the fundamental responsibility is to prevent crime from occurring in the first instance”, she said.
She called on community and religious leaders, market associations to contribute their own part as the police cannot be everywhere, pointing out that security was everyone’s business.