For many years, security sector reforms in Kenya have remained a priority including implementation of constitutional and administrative reforms, especially in the police.
Security
management approaches proposed have included the call for democratic policing
in the country, where not all decisions in operational and management issues
are only seen in the security sense.
The top-down and command structure approach had misgivings and tended not only to make the police a violent unit in the protection and promotion of rule law, but an isolated outfit that lacked even community support.
Police were seen as the property of the commanders and a symbol of oppression to the citizens then.
That perception is slowly getting changed and with the many reforms in the sector, a lot has gone under. We have totally different police even as we work to achieve a 360 degrees culture change and transformation into democratic policing in the country. It’s work in progress though many times the relapses are worrying.
Commendably, the revamped national security strategy, the security sector has managed to improve security management.
The re-energized Nyumba Kumi initiative and related community policing approach, acquisition of latest equipment including helicopters among other things have enhanced the country’s security.
It would seem however that critical things such as the formation of County Policing Authorities that require the involvement of Governors and county government in the management of security, involvement of clan elders and the Kenya Police Reserves (KPRs) in crime prevention and intelligence-based gathering and operations and more importantly, the need for culture change and human relations matters within the sector seem slow.
Critically, the information management, sharing and involvement of key sectors in the supporting security operations still cause concerns.
Major operations and or attacks on our security need to be publicly shared as guided by the police standard operating procedures.
Let’s integrate information sharing, routine updates and more importantly, expand and strengthen the communication function in the police. The regular updates on crime statistics and trends in the country used to be very useful in crime management.
The training manuals used for training officers, redeployment and retraining of officers on modern policing techniques, equipping the service, the putting up of the national forensic laboratory and recruitment of professional cadres of people into the force have happened, but what are the results and lessons learnt?
What are the existing support mechanisms for the officers, especially on mental health and welfare, seem to be a major challenge for the officers?
Such practices like officers using their personal mobile phone numbers and airtime to do official work and communication serious compromise work.
How safe is official intelligence communication between security agencies when it's done through sms or private mobile phone channels? Given our community's way of way, our spouses, friends and children use our phones, and what happens when they stumble upon such vital information in our phones? I
We expose our officers to too much danger many times because of the casual way we treat them. In many scenes of crime, we parade the officers for the press and other members of the public, not knowing that they in the process,s become identified and thus targets of attacks by criminals.
Our officers need protection from members of the public, but more importantly, they need retraining on basic safety tips, including self-protection, risk identification and mitigation, first aid, handling demonstrations, bomb blast scenes, and information technology related threats among others
The new law gave a big role for governors in the formation of the envisaged County Policing Authorities (CPA), which are expected to facilitate public participation on county policing policy and ensure policing accountability to the public.
Each county is expected to have its independent CPA, whose membership is to be established under the supervision of the Governor.
County Governments are required to facilitate community policing forums, which according to the law are expected to foster a better working relationship between the Police Service and the public which they serve.
The thinking here is that improved relation is critical in providing criminal intelligence to the relevant arms of the Government for action. How much is this happening?
Many the County include support to the police and general security services in their budgets, but practically, how much goes to this function?
The police is an institution with
structures, policies and administrative codes, that have been reviewed, and
must continually be improved to match the emerging needs including need for
information sharing on critical operational issues, continuous community
engagement, trust building and not pegged on the personality of one individual,
be it the Minister, Principal Secretary or IG, even as they take overall
responsibility for the leadership.
