The police officer in Kenya is suffering a crisis of morale which is best understood by looking at the major problems .

Recruitment is of concern to the force. Few middle class youth have ever looked upon a career in the force with envy. Rather, in the words of one professional expert, “police work has been the traditional avenue for upward mobility by those who really lack any other viable options.” An informal survey reveals strong antagonism to the police. A great number of people are convinced that the police treat people unequally in different parts of Nairobi. Many stated that they would not seek out the police themselves if they were in trouble.

The depressing pay that a police officer can anticipate at the end of the month is another cause for concern. Here is someone charged with the responsibility of maintaining law and order in Kenya, taking home a gross salary of Ksh 10,000 per month, yet his job is precious and his life is constantly under threat. It is hardly surprising when the police officer resorts to bribery, extortion and other forms of crime to bolster his income.

Preference seems to be given to physique over mental ability and stability. There are no screenings for emotional fitness; there are no psychiatric tests to spot biases, sadism or panic response under pressure. Recently, David Kimutai Too, a Kenyan legislator and a companion were shot to death by a police officer. Could these deaths have been avoided?

We are witnessing scenarios where police officers have questionable tolerance and understanding. This brutal, sadistic police stereotype should be done away with.

Today’s police officer must make the swift, drastic swift from lone operator to disciplined member of a military unit to respond to riots. One minute he is patrolling, responsive to only his own judgment and experience. The next minute, as the riot flares, he must merge quickly into a military force under strict orders of a unit commander. It is as though a security guard was suddenly plummeted into an army battalion in Iraq and expected to exhibit the precise responses under fire that took months to soak into the brain and blood of the soldier.

Organized crime is a major headache for the police. Groupings like the Mungiki, with a tight hold on rackets in towns and cities around Kenya,murders,pillages,terrorizes and expands its empire into legitimate businesses. the flow of intelligence is haphazard and fails to pass freely probably because these groupings have paid pipelines into the police. What is needed is a broad based national organization, as centrally directed and as sophisticated as the Mungiki itself, with cooperating units manned by trusted security-cleared officers in every police division. Such an elite organization would sift and coordinate intelligence, gather evidence and plan arrests and indictments.

Even if he were geared to handle organized crime, the police officer would find little time to wage the fight. His days are steeped in trivia such as rounding up drunks which is a time consuming exercise. Many arrests in Kenya are for public drunkenness. In only a small minority of cases are the drunks either dangerous or in danger, yet laws demand that the police officers clear the streets. One, two, or thirty nights later, depending of police procedure; for today, many police units have no more idea than 100 years ago of what is contained in a police unit a few kilometers away. The force should embrace technology immediately and shed its terrier-like approach to issues.

But no brave new world of police science will change the stance of the officer on the beat. Today, he is asked to fill an almost super-human role with ancient tools, outmoded skills and crustacean attitudes. He needs more education, better training, new weapons, on the mood of the magistrate, the drunk is back, and the dreary routine starts all over again. Prostitution falls in the same category, and follows a monotonous rhythm of arrest, fines and back to work.

Some police thinkers urge a complete re-evaluation of the police officer’s job. Police concern with drunkenness and prostitution either proves a weary vexation to no permanent avail or invites corruption through swift,easy payoffs. Some method must be found to channel police energies into the crucial battles for law and order.

Kenya is in the dark ages of police technology. With all the advancements in technology becoming readily available in Kenya, one cannot help but wonder why the police have remained in 1946. The recent Naivasha jailbreak ruthlessly exposed deficiencies at the police and prisons respectively. Ideally, every police station, every police division should be interlinked in a computerized maze to a centralized crime information center where records of offenders,wanted persons and stolen property are instantly available for the cop on the beat. Such a leap of faith would be like vaulting across an entire century more pay, vastly more status and above all, a new outlook toward his fellow citizens.

Police officers should be professionals with heart, sympathy and understanding.

The Kenyan police officer will continue to be confused, disillusioned, frustrated and hostile until he learns to see the people he serves- of all backgrounds- as fellow human beings and until the bulk of the people on his beat can call him friend, not foe.

M.K 2008 All rights reserved©