Exploring the perception of forensic science among police investigators in Nigeria: The role of sociodemographic markers

Underlining the application of forensic science methods in police investigations is investigators’ perceptions of the methods. The premise is that a positive perception indicates a willingness to apply forensic science in criminal investigations, regardless of prior forensic training. This study compared common sociodemographic markers with regard to perceptions of forensic science application in criminal investigations among investigating police officers in Nigeria, controlling for forensic training. The six sociodemographic markers were: gender, age, marital status, highest educational qualification, rank, and years in service. The survey used a self-administered questionnaire for data collection. Based on a total population of 3771 investigating police officers, a sample size of 347 was determined using Krejcie and Morgan’s formula (Krejcie RV and Morgan DW (1970) Determining sample size for research activities. Educational and Psychological Measurement 30(3): 607–610). A potential 20% dropout rate was added giving a sample size of 416. No difference was found across the sociodemographic markers with regards to the perception of forensic science utilization in criminal investigations (p > .05), except for the highest educational qualification (p = .008) and rank (p = .042) of the respondents. The perception score was higher in the primary school category than in the secondary school and diploma certificate categories. Comparison between the categories secondary certificate and degree/HND certificate indicated a statistically significant lower perception score in the secondary certificate category. The perception score was lower in the diploma category than in the degree/HND certificate and postgraduate categories. For police rank, pairwise comparison showed that the officer category had a higher perception score than the constable category. There was also a statistically significant higher perception of forensic science among inspectors than among constables. It is recommended that educational qualification and rank should be considered when deploying police personnel to the criminal investigation department.