Revealed: Why police have failed to curb crime

The national police service has been unable to deal with incessant crime incidents in the country, partly because it mistreats those who report crime.

A new survey by Ipsos indicates that nearly two thirds of victims of crime and who report those incidents are never satisfied with the way the police handle the complaints.

The figure of those not satisfied has remained above 60 per cent since November last year even though an average of one in 20 people say they have been victims of crime over the same period.

On Friday, Ipsos published a report of a study done between July 31 and August 9 this year indicating that people are discouraged from reporting crime incidents because officers poorly investigate them, demand bribes or do not follow them up at all.

When, during the survey, 2002 adult Kenyans were asked if they had experienced crime in the previous 90 days, just five per cent of them answered in the affirmative. More than half (51 per cent) of these victims said they had reported to the police.

But when researchers inquired whether they had been helped by the police, 61 per cent of them said they were ‘completely dissatisfied’ with the police response.

“Just why the reporting figure remains so low is again suggested by the levels of satisfaction obtained among those who did so: well over twice as many “completely dissatisfied” with the response they obtained from the Police than those who were either “somewhat satisfied” or “not satisfied at all,” Ipsos researchers observe in their report.

Those satisfied said the police had arrested criminals, helped them recover stolen property of improved security. But about 55 per cent of those dissatisfied said the police did poor investigation.

Another group said police had asked bribes to follow up the matter while the rest indicated the officers were not interested at all.

Still, the Ipsos report indicates that the reasons cited for dissatisfaction may not be entirely distinct, given the police may decline investigations if victims refuse to part with bribes.

“It may be asked whether corruption of one type or another might itself account for some of the failure associated with post-reporting investigations (or the lack thereof), so that these two categories may not be entirely distinct,” the report states.

The figure of crime victims may indicate low crime rates in the country, with the number of Kenyans who have not experienced crime remaining at 9 in every ten since April this year.

But Ipsos Research Analyst Tom Wolf told the Nation no one should celebrate yet because of the low numbers of people dissatisfied with police response.

“It doesn’t show a lot of confidence in the police. Based on this, the police have no actual idea of how many people were actually victims of crime because people are not reporting these incidents,” Dr Wolf argued.

“This lack of reporting could affect police strategy in handling crime in future. How can you put in place measures that have half a chance of working unless you know what victims say about crime?”

The proportion of respondents who had been crime victims has decreased by about half since April, but Ipsos researchers warned they could not get a clear reason for the drop and could not predict this lower level of crime to continue in future.

They will have to conduct another survey in the next two months to determine this.

Although Ipsos did not ask affected respondents why they had failed to report to the police, the findings could be another indictment on the slow police reforms.

Those reforms were supposed to improve police command structure, improve their welfare, train them better, give them new equipment and create oversight bodies; all aimed at dissuading them from corruption and motivating them to remain professional.

But they have largely stalled as a result of infighting among the different ranks.

Ipsos report did agree with a consistent trend: Kenyans who were victims of crime have always felt dissatisfied with police response since 2006 when Ipsos started inquiring on the phenomenon.

The research was conducted through face-to-face interviews, in English, Kiswahili and Somali languages, in 41 counties spread across all the former 8 provinces in Kenya.

Sixty-three per cent of respondents were from urban areas, 37 per cent from rural. In total, 51 per cent of them were female.

Ipsos says there was a margin of error of +/-2.2 with a 95 per cent confidence level, meaning if the same study was repeated over and over at the same time, there could be a difference of about 2.2 points in the findings.