Police Organisational Behaviour and the Trend of Criminal Activities in Rivers State Nigeria

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate the extent to which the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) organizational behavior has reduced the trend of criminal activities in Rivers State. A descriptive survey research method of correlational research design was employed in this study to provide detailed investigation of the procedure used to establish the relationship between the Nigeria police force organizational behavior and the trend of criminal activities in Rivers State. The population of the study was 193,392,500 persons consisting of residents drawn from the cities and rural communities in Rivers State. A sample size of 400 respondents was determined, using Taro Yamene’s sample size techniques at 0.5 percent level of significance. A purposive sampling technique was adopted using a considerable percentage representation approach to ensure effective selection of the representative sample elements of the population from respondents who have adequate knowledge of the study under investigation. A structured instrument for data collection containing twenty (20) item questions was used for the study. The face and content validation of the instrument was obtained through the judgment of experts. A test-retest method was used to determine the reliability of the instrument and a reliability index of .83 was obtained. The data collected were analyzed using the descriptive statistics involving the mean score test and the percentage test method to answer the research questions, while the Z-score test of the inferential statistics method was used to test the hypothesized variables at .05 level of significance. The results obtained revealed that “Nigeria Police Force organizational behavior does not significantly reduce the trend of criminal activities in Rivers State.” The implication of the finding is that the discovered weakness of the Nigeria police force organizational behavior is that it lacks the needed proactive ethical improvement value to carry out its responsible assignments as an organization. Consequently, increasing the level of police compromise with many related criminal activities is considered mephitic enough to uplift or expand the trend of criminal activities in the state if more punitive measures are not employed by the government. It was therefore advisable that the federal government should employ legal assessor that will be used to form “Police Behavioral Monitoring Task Force (PBMT)” in every local government areas to oversee or monitor unethical and irresponsible behaviors of the Nigeria police officers in each state to curtail or curb police dysfunctional involvement in criminal related practices.