Community Policing and Crime reduction in Informal Settlements: a case of Korogocho Slum, Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

Community policing was developed on the understanding that police alone without the good will of the community may not achieve much in maintaining law and order. However, since its inception in Kenya in 2003, crime rates are still persistent and the situation is felt more in the informal settlements. It is in view of this that this study is undertaken to research on community policing and crime reduction in informal settlements with reference to Korogocho slums in Nairobi City County, Kenya. To attain the goal of the study, five specific objectives were formulated. The objectives were to: find out the types of crimes; determine state security interventions in crime reduction; evaluate the community initiatives in crime reduction; assess the challenges facing community policing and crime reduction and establish community policing initiatives that can assist in crime reduction, in the Case of Korogocho slums, Nairobi City County. The Personal Construct Theory and the Path Goal Theory were employed to argue how the individuals interpret reality. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The targeted population was 11090 households in Korogocho as well as key informants in the informal settlements. Simple random sampling technique was employed to select a sample of 384 heads of households from the population. Purposive sampling was utilised to select a sample of 3 key informants that were crucial to the study. Mixed methods (mainly quantitative and qualitative) were employed for data collection and analysis. Qualitative data was analysed thematically while quantitative data was analysed using descriptive statistics mainly frequencies and percentages. This was through the assistance of data analysis software (SPSS). Some of the key findings were: numerous crimes exist in Korogocho but stealing is experienced daily according to 58.5% of the respondents. The study also established that although there were state interventions in crime reductions only 2% and 12% of respondents rate the interventions as excellent and good respectively. Findings establish that although 70% of the respondents were aware of community policing initiatives only 40% of them were involved in such initiatives. According to 31.6% of the respondents citizens’ mistrust of the police was highlighted as the key challenge in community policing initiatives of dealing with crime reduction. Respondents view community policing as one of the sustainable approach of crime reduction but requiring a paradigm shift in terms of structure and involvement of the citizens. Findings from this study are expected to contribute to policy and scholarly works on community policing and crime reduction.