Police Officers Information Needs and Seeking Behaviour in the Three Geopolitical Zones of Imo State, Nigeria

The police profession largely utilizes timely and comprehensive information in work performance without which its duty of safeguarding human lives and property is highly jeopardized. To this end, vital information needs to be sought and obtained for effective and efficient policing in Nigeria. This study assessed the kinds of information needed by police officers in the performance of their duties, the means used to obtain such information and barriers encountered while seeking information. Using the descriptive statistics of close-ended questionnaire structure, analyzed with one sample proportion right-tailed test for quantitative data and interview for qualitative data, the study found that all options specified as kinds of information needed by officers such as information on crises and crime areas within the state, information on the location of criminals and information on the arrest of culprits are essential and needed except information on games and social life. On the barriers encountered while seeking for information, calculated using frequencies and percentages and obtained from the interview responses, the study found that uncooperative members of the public and bad road condition were major barriers. The study made recommendations based on barriers affecting information seeking among police officers in Imo State