The art of bribery! Analysis of police corruption at traffic checkpoints and roadblocks in Kenya

ABSTRACT

The discreetness of street-level corruption resides in somewhat coded languages, techniques, networks and trust (solidarity) by key players. The newcomers become indoctrinated as the oldtimers, found at different levels of the police hierarchy, acting as the gatekeepers. Therefore, bribery occurs within a syndicate requiring privileged knowledge, coping strategies, and a network that would descriptively qualify as the art of bribery. Dissidence comes with a greater cost. This paper shows how Kenyan police corruption and behaviour at checkpoints occurs within a syndicate underpinned by policing culture and loosely regulated institutional environments. Traffic policing features a well-established and expansive network of institutionalised corruption regulated by the rules-of-the game where each party play their parts. Motorists pay bribes to circumvent traffic regulations or be on the right terms with corrupt officers while the police maximise illicit incomes for personal and institutional gains. The unstructured public transport and overlapping regulations exacerbate corruption at the roadblocks, creating a corruption complex and spiral effects between the police and motorists. This discussion also indicates the incompetence of police personnel and citizen agency deficits in anti-corruption reforms in Africa. Most importantly, the paper shows that tighter traffic regulations unexpectedly produces and legitimises corruption in weaker regulatory systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Policing in Africa
• police reforms
• anti-corruption systems
• oversight regulations
• citizen agency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Star (August, 2016).Corrupt Mombasa cops shielding drug dealers, former regional police boss says. http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2016/08/04/corrupt-mombasa-cops-shielding-drug-dealers-former-regional-police_c1398720

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gedion Onyango

Gedion Onyango is a University Lecturer of Public Policy and Administration at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Nairobi, Kenya. He is also a Researcher at Afrobarometer, East African Region. Gedion Onyango has a PhD in Public Administration from University of the Western Cape, South Africa. He is the editor of two books: Routledge Handbook of Public Policy in Africa (2022) and Governing Kenya: Public Policy in Theory and Practice. London: Palgrave MacMillan (2021), co-edited with Prof. Goran Hyden. His articles appear in some of the leading journals in politics and public administration.