How crime rate has gone up in Kenya
Offenses involving police officers surged from 131 to 203.
5d agoHillary BettInfographics
I had a most unusual experience one day while on the phone one late afternoon.
I had received a call from an unknown number and only when I heard the familiar voice did I know who it was. Hardly had we spoken for a minute and a half, before I heard an indignant yell and a surprisingly loud ‘vroom’ of a motorbike before everything went silent.
I learnt about three hours later, after failing to reach my caller four times on the number they called from.
He had been a victim of theft by a boda boda rider. In the upmarket residential areas in Mombasa, individual or small groups often walk in the evening along the tree-lined streets that ordinarily have limited vehicular traffic.
They walk as a form of exercise, which hardly ever goes past 7pm. In the densely populated low-rent residential areas, there is a mass of people also walking daily, not for exercise but to get home before it gets dark.
Increasingly both categories of residents of Mombasa are victims of motorbike-riding thieves.
This trend is caused by a myriad of factors, the first being youth unemployment.
Despite 60 per cent of the boda boda riders being youths in one of the fastest-growing youth employers, in Mombasa this caters for only about 7,200 youths of the 130,000 youths who are seeking employment.
Youths’ dignity is undermined due to lack of these crucial social factors: a sense of purpose, identity, financial independence, social recognition and inclusion.
This exclusion results in a vengeful do-or-die attitude leading to increased crime. One of the solutions lies in job opportunities and development of a Special Economic Zone.
It is estimated that would provide 100 skilled and semi-skilled jobs per every acre of work area. Mombasa county has a Special Economic License to develop 235 acres and, - hopefully, construction should be underway soon. Drug abuse is another cause of crime.
The drug addict needs to fund his habit, especially when he develops tolerance, which demands more and more drugs. For most addicts’, legal ways of fu
The drug addict needs to fund his habit, especially when he develops tolerance, which demands more and more drugs.
For most addicts’, legal ways of fu
nding addiction do not exist, so crime becomes the answer. While under the influence of drugs, the judgement of an addict becomes impaired and violent crime can result.
Statistics show 34.4 per cent of Mombasa youth are abusing at least one substance. The need for more rehabilitation centres must be linked with long-term support, aftercare and avoidance of social and environmental triggers.
This would reduce the current drug relapse rate estimated at 60 per cent within the first year of recovery.
A third factor contributing to crime is inadequate policing. The increase in theft by boda boda riders is because of the speed and agility allowing perpetrators to escape.
Their speed limits victims’ ability to counter theft, when one youth rides while the other snatches.
This is primarily because security is largely based on law enforcement personnel. is is estimated to prevent about 16 per cent of crimes, while remote surveillance stops approximately 50 per cent.
The coverage
is also much greater through online
security systems.
With the prevailing ratio of police
to citizens there are about 3,000 police catering for the 1.4 million residents of Mombasa.
The establishment of online surveillance along parts of Old Town Mombasa has promoted security in those particular streets, although the labyrinths of narrow streets, which are not monitored, provide escape routes.
But back to my friend who was robbed while calling me. I was pleasantly surprised to fi nd my friend seemed not to have been traumatised by the event at all, saying the thieves had gotten away with the inexpensive phone he uses when going on his evening walks.
He was not the first victim he knew of. What is disturbing is that a citizen can be so resigned that all they do is take anticipatory measures to limit the damage of a crime they deem inevitable. Carry a cheap phone.
This cannot and should be what we have to live with in Mombasa.
