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Abstract
Police operate within the given sociopolitical context of a country. Those working on police reform have to acknowledge the political arena in which it takes place – especially when such an arena is not fully supportive of the reform project. This article argues that implementing police reform in an ‘unwilling context’ may result in the building of new institutions to hold the police accountable, but is unlikely to have a substantial impact on police practice. It uses the reform process in Kenya as a case study. Kenya embarked on a fresh reform process in 2009, which resulted in the adoption of a new legal framework for the police in 2011. However, implementing the new legislation has proved challenging and the failure of both the executive and the police to comply with the new instructions has impeded the progress of the various newly built institutions and their impact on fair and effective policing. Since the reforms serve the interests of those in power only to a limited extent, and the direction provided by the law is ambiguous at times, there is ample space for deliberation over mandates and authorities, thus further diminishing the potential impact of the reforms. The public wants the police to enhance their effectiveness, especially in view of rising crime and terrorism, but is still grappling with the terms that should apply. Civil society needs to claim its position in directing that debate.
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Acknowledgements
The author thanks Otto Adang and Gabrielle Lynch for their constructive feedback and comments on previous drafts of this article. The author also thanks Tamara Britten for editing.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The author is an independent consultant specialising in ‘Police and Human Rights’ and worked on the police reforms process in Kenya from 2011 to 2013. The insights in this paper are a product of public reports by government agencies and nongovernmental organisations, newspaper articles and interviews.
2. Kenya has two separate Police Services: the Kenya Police Service and the Administration Police Service. Together they form the National Police Service (NPS). Whenever this article refers to ‘police’ in Kenya what is meant is the NPS. Note that this article will focus on the NPS in general, and will leave out the role of special units, such as the Anti-Terror Police Unit, the Kenya Police Reservists and the General Service Unit.
3. The Task Force, and others, also documented the undignified circumstances in which many police officers live at the police barracks. And IPOA raised alarm over sexual harassment in the Service: ‘[IPOA] has so far received 759 complaints against individual police officers, most of which are related to sexual harassment’ (Ndonga Citation2013).
4. Apart from the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission.
5. In 2013, the case of ‘Joshua Waiganjo’ made daily headlines in the Kenya media: a high-ranked police officer (Assistant Commissioner), who was carrying out command functions and even firing junior officers, turned out not to be a police officer at all. For more information, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_PPO_Probe (accessed 19 May 2014).
6. In 2003, the Government of Kenya established a Task Force to review the terms and conditions of the policing institutions. The Task Force drafted a ‘Strategy Plan 2004–2008’, largely focusing on improving salaries and allowances and enhancing budget allocation to address infrastructural, operational and administrative concerns. It also contained elements of the reforms of today, acknowledging objectives such as enhancing accountability and improving community relations. Subsequently, the ‘GJLOS programme’ (Government, Justice, Law and Order Sector) enabled the police to acquire training, equipment and vehicles.
7. Note that there are aspects of the reform package that are ignored in this paper, such as changes to the police training curriculum, housing and insurance package, etc. This paper focuses on those aspects of the reform package that aim to enhance accountability.
8. Police reform is an ongoing process, with new developments on a weekly, if not daily basis. This paper describes the developments up to early July 2014.
9. Especially those reform projects that aim to enhance respect for human rights and those that intend to build police institutions as part of a democratisation process (see Call Citation2003).
10. Constitution of Kenya, Article 245.
11. The Provincial Administration used to have control over the Administration Police, leading to frequent interference in police operations.
12. Constitution of Kenya, Article 245.
13. Constitution of Kenya, Article 246.
14. The actual Act was only published in July 2012, almost a year after it was adopted in Parliament and assented to by President Kibaki.
15. As provided for in s41, as well as the 6th Schedule of the NPS Act.
16. See, for example, the judgements by Judge George Vincent Odunga, on 2 March 2014 (Miscellaneous Civil Case 226 of 2013) and 19 December 2013 (Misc. Civil Application 93 of 2013 (JR)). Both are available online, from: http://kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/advanced_search/ (accessed 7 July 2014).
17. As per section 7 of the NPS Act.
18. According to the NPSC, available from http://www.npsc.go.ke (accessed 4 July 2014). Of the first 30 officers ranked immediately below the IG, 5 did not pass initially. Four of these five officers have challenged the decision in Court, and the fifth officer has appealed through the Commission's review panel. The review panel decided to reinstate the officer, and the Court decided in two cases that the officers needed to be vetted afresh (Muraya Citation2014). At the time of writing this article, the Commission is in the process of preparing for the next batch, of 1168 officers.
19. Examples are many: the Director of Inspections, who admitted Inspections’ recommendations were never followed up; the Head of Community Policing, who admitted Community Policing had failed in Kenya; the senior police officer who drew a salary despite not working for a year; various senior police officers having unexplainable wealth (CHRI and HURINET Uganda Citation2014).
20. Based on personal communication between the author and members of civil society.
21. Yet according to its second performance report, IPOA received 663 complaints in the first six months of 2013.
22. For which over 5000 respondents across Kenya were interviewed, and another 515 police officers.
23. This was for failing to cooperate with the Authority. The case is believed to have a strong deterrent effect on future obstruction.
24. In addition, the Authority has carried out inspections of 25 police stations and has monitored police operations.
25. ‘Most crimes committed in the country are under-reported, making police crime statistics unreliable, investigations reveal. The available data does not give the true picture of the prevalence of serious crimes such as rape, murder and robberies, making it difficult to formulate effective crime control policies. The statistics, which give the nature, extent and trends in crime rates, are under-reported, suppressed, or distorted. Police do not record all crimes reported to them, and have also been accused of using statistics selectively to suggest improvements in security’ (Daily Nation, 3 November 2013).
26. ‘“Kenyans have never been as insecure as they are right now, generally speaking,” he said. “We've never had less confidence in our government's ability to deal with this insecurity – that is the most serious problem.”’ Interview with John Githongo in The Guardian (Anderson Citation2014).
27. This was confirmed when there were several bomb attacks in early and mid-May 2014, in Mombasa and Nairobi, after Usalama Watch had been in progress for some weeks.
28. In addition, Usalama found that confidence in the ability of the police to provide ordinary day-to-day policing had dropped to 28% (from 34% in 2012); the number of respondents who believed that policing services and standards have improved over the past 24 months had dropped to 30% (from 36% in 2012) and 36% believed services had become worse.
29. Based on interviews with 2400 adults throughout Kenya, in November 2011.
30. Furthermore, the Afrobarometer found that 30% think ‘all’ police are involved in corruption (and 39% think ‘most of them’ are involved in corruption; the police scores by far the highest in corruption of all the state agencies and institutions in the survey); 32% indicate it is ‘very difficult’ to get help from the police, and only 18% say it is easy.
31. It should be noted that there are probably other factors at play that have less to do with the power dynamics of the country and more to do with the discomfort Kenya's leadership may feel about the country's new status of being a terrorist-targeted nation, as any acknowledgement of the necessity of reforms would simultaneously reveal there is a security problem, which would threaten the carefully constructed idea of Kenya being a haven of peace in an otherwise unstable region (Branch Citation2011).
32. In a certain way, the same can be said about the accountability institutions. Operating in an ‘unwilling context’, one that does not show clear unequivocal support of the reforms, they also find themselves struggling to implement their mandates and uphold the related authorities and responsibilities. For, like the IG, if these structures are to gain relevance and achieve meaningful change, they need to take a more impartial, independent position, which is not yet customary practice.