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The CLEEN Foundation, formally Centre for Law Enforcement Education in Nigeria, created public forums where citizens and police can discuss concerns and grievances regarding crime and police conduct.

Communities and police forces can find themselves in an unproductive cycle of distrust. Community members are concerned about misconduct, brutality and corruption. The police, in turn, are concerned with the community is hostile and uncooperative in their investigations.

In Nigeria, the centralized structure of the police force has contributed to the problem: one set of agendas and policies is applied to the whole country, creating a gap between the law enforcement priorities of the police and the needs of the local communities.

CLEEN begins bridging this disconnect by sending letters to local governments, proposing the establishment of a public forum in their community. The group follows up on this invitation only if local governments respond and the cooperation and commitment of the local police division can be secured. CLEEN then conducts a partnership workshop, where police and community members receive conflict resolution training, discuss police responses to local complaints and discuss how CLEEN’s program could be implemented in the area. These workshops allow each community to shape the program to its own needs. Then two people from the community are hired on a part-time basis to coordinate the forums for two years. After the two-year period is over, the community must find a way to sustain the program on its own.

CLEEN’s tactic provides community members and police officers a non-threatening environment in which to share their concerns, overcoming the significant barriers that bureaucracy puts up. Both sides in a potentially contentious relationship have the opportunity to see the other as more human: someone to collaborate with, rather than to oppose. Over time, this process can interrupt the unproductive cycle of mistrust and lay a new foundation for police to embrace their role of service to citizens and citizens assisting the police to carry out their duties. This can reduce both police violence and civilian crime. The project has been implemented in fourteen local government areas drawn from the six geographical regions of Nigeria.

Mistrust and misunderstandings cause friction among many groups. This tactic could be used to build stronger relationships between groups in conflict or seen as adversaries, for example, between ethnic groups or business owners and farmers. One potential pitfall is the emotion and acrimony that can surround very difficult issues. Facilitators must be prepared to deal with this, and to do so over a fairly long period of time. A one-time meeting is likely to be far less effective than CLEEN’s long-term approach.

Photo source: CLEEN website