Role of Radio in Community Policing: a Case Study of Pumwani

Abstract

The global and regional security environment continues to experience dynamic challenges and opportunities that call for new approaches in crime prevention. Most countries in the world including the Commonwealth have shifted to community policing as a policing strategy of the 21st Century and Kenya is not an exemption. As a country, Kenya is affected by these developments that have necessitated a paradigm shift in our policing doctrine. The study found out that an effective policing communication strategy must be embraced to provide a framework that allows community members to participate in securing themselves, their properties and national interest. The study further indicates that radio is pivotal in raising awareness of the importance and benefits of community policing because majority of its listeners have knowledge about what entails in community policing and what is constraining the success of the programme. In this perspective the study sought to establish the role Ghetto radio plays in crime prevention, to establish the extent of police-community partnership on crime reduction, to assess the extent to which Ghetto radio station has sensitized in reduction of youth social disorder and to establish the impact community policing as a crime reduction strategy has impacted on the community livelihood. However, it recommended that further comparative studies should be carried out in other parts of the country and other local radio stations need to be engaged to sensitize citizens on the impact of community policing in order to prevent emerging modern crimes.