Analysis Of Community Contribution Towards Community Policing In Makina Village Of Kibra Sub County, Nairobi County
Abstract
Community Policing (CP) involves joint efforts of both the police and the locals to discuss
and implement strategies in preventing and reducing crime established through relevant
legislations. However, the contribution of the community in community policing has not
been adequately analyzed and there is insufficient knowledge in this field. The study
therefore provides essential information towards understanding how the community
contributes to community policing in Kenya. The main objective of the study was to
evaluate community contribution towards community policing in security provision in
Kibra while the specific objectives were to analyze the forms and impact of community
contribution towards community policing; to establish the level of social media utilization
in community policing and other community resources used to enhance community
policing. The literature review looked at different forms of Community Policing in
different jurisdictions including the United Kingdom, France, China, Brazil, Japan and
Mozambique. The Study further used Broken Windows Theory and Democratic Theory of
Community Policing to summarize and interpret its data.
The research was undertaken in Makina village, Kibra sub county. It used both quantitative
and qualitative approaches to enrich its data. The unit of analysis was Makina village with
respect to community policing practices and activities. Makina village was divided into
three sections which formed the strata. The sampling procedure used was stratified and
simple random sampling to identify the respondents in each strata and purposive sampling
to identify key informants. The primary respondents were the household heads who were
a representative sample of 0.5% (123) of the population of 25,242 residents. The secondary
respondents were representatives of the Community Policing committee, business leaders,
local administration, National Police Service and members of the focus group discussions.
The data collection techniques used were household surveys, key informant interviews,
focus group discussions and desk reviews that used questionnaires and interview guides.
A pilot study was undertaken as well as peer review to validate the tools of data collection.
The study followed laid out ethical considerations and used the Statistical Package for
Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21 for data analysis.
The study established that the primary forms of community participation in community
policing were reporting crime, participating in community security meetings and elections
of community policing committee officials. The contribution of women as a special
category was also assessed and the study found that women were actively involved in
community policing forums, voicing out their security concerns and sensitizing the
community on security. The study further established that financial contributions were
made towards security on a monthly basis at an average of KShs. 500. The most common
social media applications used to share information on security were WhatsApp and
Facebook which had contributed to reduced crime, increased responsiveness to crime
reports and more awareness about the activities of the CP committee. Other community
resources to enhance CP such as hotlines and floodlights had also led to reduced crime.
The study made recommendations to have awareness creation undertaken by the
government and community policing committees on the meaning of community policing.
There is need to broaden methods of communication using social media and text messages
to capture a wider audience. There is also need for further research on the impact of social
media utilization in community policing.
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Subject
Community PolicingRights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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