Stakeholder’s perceptions of influence of community policing on criminal activities in low income areas of Nakuru Town, Kenya

Abstract

Kenya has experienced a huge security lapse in the last one decade. This has been the case due to frequent rates of crime such as theft, armed robbery, burglary, housebreaking, battery, assault and terrorism among others. Many lives have been lost, property destroyed or stolen, many homes and houses broken into, many people displaced as a result of these crimes. Community policing was introduced in Kenya in 2003 to help in reducing such criminal activities. However, it is observed that criminal activities are still taking place in Kenya and also in Nakuru Town in particular. Thus, the aim of this research is therefore, to determine the stakeholder‟s perceptions of influence of community policing on criminal activities in low income areas of Nakuru Town. This study was guided by social disorganization theory. This study employed explanatory sequential mixed methods research design. This involved, using semi-structured questionnaires to collect quantitative data after which an interview guide and focus group discussion guide were used to collect qualitative data that helped explain in a detailed manner, the results obtained from the quantitative phase. The study population comprised the residents of 4 low income areas of Nakuru Town wards (Kaptembwo, Rhonda, Bondeni and Kivumbini) that had a total population of 252,762. From the total population, a sample of 156 respondents was obtained through purposive sampling for the survey and focus group discussion in each ward. Purposive sampling was also used to select four police officers who were the heads of police stations as well as 4 chiefs of the Nakuru Town wards for the interviews. Proportionate sampling was used to ensure representativeness and to determine the number of citizens needed from each ward. To ensure validity of the instruments, the research instruments were given to the supervisors to cross check and evaluate content validity. Piloting of questionnaires was done in Langa Langa ward in Nakuru Town. Cronbach‟s alpha was used to test reliability of the semi-structured questionnaires that were used in the study and a correlation coefficient of 0.805 was obtained thus was considered acceptable. Data entry was conducted using SPSS software. Quantitative data obtained were then analyzed using Pearson‟s correlation coefficient. Hypotheses were tested at 5% level of significance. Descriptive statistics such as mean and percentages were also used. Qualitative data obtained by focus group discussions were analyzed through thematic approach while data from the interviews were first coded then analyzed using Nvivo Software. The results obtained from Kaptembwo, Bondeni and Kivumbini gave statistically significant influence of community policing on criminal activities. There also appears to be no statistically significant influence of community policing on criminal activities in Rhonda. This implies that community policing is not working uniformly in the areas studied. The findings from this study inform the National and County government of Nakuru and Kenya at large, on the need to sensitize the public on the importance of enhancing police-community interaction as a good measure to reduce the rate of crimes in the community through community policing, conduct training and re-training of police to meet the demands of community policing as well as having a legal framework indicating the relationship between the police and the community.