The Oshodi Law Enforcement Practices Inventory (OLEPI): Toward a Culturally Responsive Measure of Policing Perceptions in Africa, the Caribbean, and Beyond

Public confidence in law enforcement is foundational to democratic stability and institutional legitimacy. Research consistently demonstrates that compliance with the law and cooperation with police are shaped more by perceptions of fairness, dignity, and accountability than by crime outcomes. Yet comparative measurement of these perceptions remains underdeveloped outside of Euro-American contexts. This study introduces the Oshodi Law Enforcement Practices Inventory (OLEPI), a 21-item instrument designed to capture perceptions of policing across Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States. Grounded in procedural justice, institutional legitimacy, and integrity–corruption frameworks, OLEPI organizes perceptions into four domains: community engagement, procedural justice, use of force, and ethics/integrity. A pilot administration (N = 75) in Nigeria, The Bahamas, and the United States revealed that the tool is reliable (Cronbach’s α = .74–.83), feasible, and sensitive to both universal and context-specific concerns. Nigerian participants emphasized corruption and accountability deficits, Bahamians foregrounded fairness and visibility in small-community encounters, and U.S. respondents stressed professionalism, legitimacy, and de-escalation. Across settings, accountability and transparency emerged as global drivers of legitimacy. Tabulated results clarified these cross-national patterns, showing OLEPI’s ability to capture both shared and context-specific pressures. These findings affirm OLEPI’s potential for cross-cultural application, with implications for recruitment, training, policy reform, and community trust-building. The results provide a foundation for Phase II validation, with expanded sampling across Africa and the Caribbean to strengthen cultural responsiveness while preserving global comparability.