Challenges to the Implementation of Community Policing in Mekelle City Administration

Abstract

Community policing is aimed at discovering and resolving community problems though a number of challenges are affecting it. But these challenges are inadequate in the scientific literature. Consequently, the objective of this paper is to assess the challenges that are affecting the implementation of community policing in Mekelle City based on primary and secondary data. Both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were employed. The data collected through key informants and focus group discussion were analyzed critically.183 questionnaires from the 188 questionnaire were found eligible for analysis. The findings show that  inadequacy of know-how about community policing, low public trust in the police, weak police-community relations, low participation of community in community policing initiatives, insufficient media coverage of community policing activities, low participation of business community, frequent staff rotation, lack of sufficient resource to support community policing activities are the challenges that are affecting the implementation of community policing in Mekelle City Administration. Therefore, to ensure the success of community policing the important actions to be necessarily taken is to develop the awareness of the community about the practice of community policing.

Keywords: Challenge, Implementation, Community policing