Fighting robbery in Ghana: rethinking the policies and strategies

Abstract

Hardly a day passes without cases of robbery being reported in both the print and the electronic media. It is against this backdrop that the study: Fighting Robbery in Ghana: Rethinking the Policies and the Strategies was conducted to analyse the kind of policies and strategies that have informed robbery control in Ghana from 1993 to 2017. The study adopted the mixed method research design, using content analysis, interviews and survey methods. The study is predominantly qualitative in that no hard quantitative methods were applied. Firstly, back editions of newspapers such as Daily Graphic and the Ghanaian Times were analysed to find out the crime control strategies that were reported by the print media. The views of a cross-section of participants/respondents were solicited for the study. In addition, a survey was conducted among the general public to ascertain some aspects of the study, especially the general views on the subject. The study found that over period, the police service has applied a number of strategies including the use of criminal justice institutions, informants-led policing and the get-tough or zero tolerance approach and more. However, these strategies have not worked very well as robbery numbers or rates keep increasing. The study recommends rethinking of these methods of fighting robbery by introducing more proactive policing methods such as community policing and intelligence-led policing strategies. A four-pronged approach to crime control is proposed as a more viable option than the usual reactive policing strategies.