Community-Based Crime Prevention Practices in El Salvador and Nigeria: Understanding Communities’ Willingness to Act

The inability of many governments to provide adequate security for their citizens is a major reason behind the adoption of non-state approaches to crime prevention. These include community-based crime prevention (CBCP) projects and practices which form the focus of this study. As can be expected, there is wide variation in the structure, objectives and outcomes of CBCP projects and practices because they have been implemented in different social, political and cultural realities, including contexts where the severity of crime varies. Where crime is severe, it might be expected that it overpowers the resources and capacities of communities to respond. Yet, existing literature shows that in some communities members continue to act together to prevent or reduce crime even under these conditions. Why, then, are some communities able to withstand high rates of crime and others are not? Given that CBCP operates in contexts that are far from uniform, what can be learnt in terms of the factors that explain their success or failure? Our study seeks to answer this question through a comparative analysis of communities located in severe crime zones in El Salvador and Nigeria. These two countries demonstrate some of the highest crime rates in Africa and Latin America and their governments are actively seeking to adopt or expand community-based crime prevention practices. We investigated the interplay between severity of crime, level of trust, community participation, social ties and willingness to act as they define, explain and condition CBCP efforts in both countries. The study was conducted in fourteen communities; 7 with high levels of insecurity (4 in El Salvador and 3 in Nigeria) and 7 with low levels of insecurity (4 in El Salvador and 3 in Nigeria). A total of 560 survey questionnaires were administered in the two countries; 280 in communities with high levels and 280 in communities with low levels of crime. From this sample, only communities with a high presence of violent crime were selected for in-depth analysis, which focused on three dependent variables - trust, willingness to act and perception of insecurity – as well as three independent variables, namely severity of crime, social ties and state capacity. Though levels of crime and trust are high in both countries, willingness to act together, social ties and civic participation are higher in Nigeria than in El Salvador. Strong state presence in El Salvador partly explains the success of community-based crime prevention, while strong community coordination explains success in Nigeria. Communities in Nigeria deploy their collective action, social ties, trust and civic participation to prevent and control crimes. Importantly, communities with strong social ties withstand severe crime better than those without such ties. The study concludes that efforts aimed at improving CBCP in El Salvador should seek to strengthen and sustain social ties, collective action and civic participation, while in Nigeria state actors should seek to effectively complement on-going CBCP efforts. While El Salvador can learn from strong and successful CBCP efforts in Nigeria, the Nigerian government also needs to learn from El Salvador, the structure and operation of state actors in crime prevention.