Impact of Citizens Do-It-Yourself Activities on Digital Platform of Community Policing in Malawi

Digital platform has become catalyst for effective and efficient enforcement of rule of law in human society. This study examines impact of citizens do-it-yourself activities on digital platform of community policing in Malawi. Under exploratory sequential mixed methods design, Interviews followed purposive sampling targeting four focus group discussions of 10 participants each using interview guide instrument. House hold survey identified 432 respondents guided by Yamene (1969) formular, and were randomly distributed within 10 centers of Muloza, structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Transcribed interviews were coded, then grouped into sub themes, further merged into themes responding to research questions with help of NVivo application. House hold survey analysis implored descriptive statistics in SPSS version 20. Guided by pragmatics philosophical assumptions under lens of social-disorganization, democratic participation, and broken window theories, findings reveal citizens have participated in virtual interaction through ICTs in community policing, characterized by formal and non-formal wide participation improving police accountability and transparency in handling policing and, citizens are satisfied with level of engagement during virtual interaction. Multinominal regression shows gender has no impact on factors that influence Do-It-Yourself participation are (1) communication and sharing information between citizens and police p=.747, (2) to be aware of rights violations and safety needs, (3) people’s involvement in rights violations and suspicious activities p=.708, (4) citizen’s involvement in crime prevention and community policing efforts, (5) to maintain community dialogue and engagement p=.088, (6) looking for faster emergency response times, and (7) to provide evidence and share information with authorities p=.806. Effectiveness of digital participation of Do-It-Yourself is that it is at random and influenced by different causes surrounding personal interests. As such they could be engaged on daily, weekly, occasionally or monthly basis as long as citizens secure their environments. The discussion is that while other studies reveal that ICTs may reduce corruption, this current study reveals that flexibility and user friendly of ICTs allowing formal and non-formal wide participation that has improved police accountability and transparency in policing empowers citizens to participate claiming for their rights to secure their environments in community policing. Based on findings the study recommends community guardians including duty bearers like police officers to enlighten citizens to embrace ICTs for more security empowerment to take part in security issues of their times.