Factors Influencing the Implementation of Community Policing in Kenya: A Case of Nakuru East Subcounty

Abstract

ABSTRACT Though community/neighborhood policing has been praised by many police organizations in most countries of the world as a big change from the way traditional policing has been over the years. The application of community policy in the developing world has not been fully embraced. Therefore the purpose of this study was to establish the factors that influence the implementation of community policing. The objectives of the study were; to determine how community involvement affects the implementation of community policing; to assess the effect of organizational transformation of the police structure influences implementation of community policing; and to establish how technology influences implementation of community policing. The study adopted a survey research design. A sample of 71 respondents using stratified random sampling technique. Data was collected using questionnaires administered to the respondents. The descriptive statistics; mean and standard deviation were used in data analysis. The statistics were calculated with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.0 for Windows. The findings were presented in form of tables depicting the descriptive statistics. The findings of the study revealed that 51.43% strongly agreed with the proposition that the success of any community policing program is brought about by the availability of community partnerships. 45.71% of the respondents strongly agreed with the proposition that core changes in the bureaucratic structure of traditional police organizations are necessary for successful implementation of Community Policing. 33% of the respondents strongly agreed with the proposition that technology is a key ingredient to successful implementation of community policing, while 43.43% of the respondents just agreed. The study connected community involvement, organizational transformation, and technology influence the successful implementation of community policing in Nakuru East sub-county. The study recommended that the government needs to set more initiatives to allow the communities participate in the responsibility of community policing and the police structure should be decentralized to make it easier for the community to access the officers at any level.