Effect of Remuneration in Private Security Companies on the Control of Property Crimes in Urban Areas in Kenya: a Case of Nairobi Central Business District

Abstract

The numbers and revenue from PSCs has continued to grow but the remuneration of personnel has not improved therefore contributing to increased crime and insecurity. This study sought to assess the effect of remuneration in PSCs on the control of property crimes in urban areas in Kenya. The site of the study was Nairobi CBD which is within Starehe District in Nairobi County. Business premises were selected by systematic random sampling while guards were chosen by purposive sampling to make a total sample size of 40 persons to which questionnaires were administered. Seven key informants were selected purposively while additional information was sought from owners of the business premises. The study revealed that stealing was the type of property crime known by a number of the respondents (65 percent) followed by smuggling (27.5 percent). Some respondents (42.5 percent) indicated that the role played by private security during incidents of crime is omission while a similar number indicated that the reason why guards omitted to perform their duty or chose to participate in crime was because of low salaries and delays in payment of salaries. A number of the respondents (37.5 percent) encountered property crimes very often followed by those who encountered property crimes often (32.5 percent). The familiar measures to control or prevent crime were access control and patrol (45 percent) followed by increasing risk of arrest and punishment (42.5 percent). Majority of the respondents (57.5 percent) indicated that the strongest challenge that they faced was collusion by employees while the best strategy to improve the measures to control or prevent property crimes was to enhance levels of supervision for key controllers as chosen by 25 percent of the respondents. Majority of the respondents placed the importance of remuneration in controlling property crimes to be very high (62.5 percent). Important recommendations include government to play a leading role in ensuring that adequate crime research is conducted, stem the tide of proliferation of sophisticated arms and fast track the pending Private Security Regulations Bill of 2010