Chapter 1

Crime prevention in the City of Nairobi

1. Introduction

This urban crime prevention research study is sponsored by SaferAfrica, a NGO based in Pretoria, South Africa. The basic objective of the research was the collection of crime prevention data initiatives across a series of cities, namely Tshwane (formerly known as Pretoria), Johannesburg, Nairobi and Khartoum. This report presents the findings specific to the City of Nairobi and is divided into three distinct sections.

Chapter One: The first part of the first section starts with an outline of the research methodology that was followed in the gathering, processing and presentation of the requisite crime prevention data and information. The second part is a general outline of the City of Nairobi from the viewpoint of the contemporary challenges it faces as Kenya's capital and the largest local authority. The third part focuses on crime and insecurity and gives a historical outline of the development of thinking on crime, and an outline of the current diverse approaches to crime prevention in Nairobi.
Chapter Two: The second section of this study is a compilation of nine case studies of stakeholders in crime prevention in the city. These represented a sample of the many organisations with international, national and local constitutional or self-proclaimed
mandates in crime prevention.

At the apex of these organisations is a case study of the United Nations Habitat 'Safer Cities Program' (SCP). This is virtually the only international countrywide initiative on crime prevention. This study specifically investigated the manner in which the SCP has been
handled by the Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG-EA), which has responsibility for overseeing its implementation in the City of Nairobi in conjunction with the other stakeholders in crime prevention.

The second and third case studies are Government of Kenya institutions that are charged with the administration and management of crime and crime prevention covering the whole city. These are respectively the Kenya Police Force and the Nairobi City Council Inspectorate.

The fourth and fifth case studies represent non-governmental organisations in crime prevention. In the early 1990s NGOs, in conjunction with their predominantly international sponsors, responded vigorously to the problems of service delivery as the Kenya Government struggled in an environment of declining economic performance and increased poverty and corruption. NGOs touched literally every sphere of life in Kenya and crime prevention was no exception.

This part of the study scrutinises arguably the two most successful umbrella grass-root organisations in Nairobi. In this section, I investigate crime prevention activities of, firstly, We Can Do It (WCDI), an NGO which coordinates the activities of over 200 neighbourhood associations in predominantly middle- and upper-income residential areas of Nairobi. Secondly, I look at the Nairobi Central Business District Association (the NCBDA), which has focused on the diverse problems of Nairobi's city centre.

The sixth and seventh case studies are those of private security firms with ongoing commercial interests in crime prevention. These are Securicor Ltd, a large international firm, and Secucenter Ltd, a comparatively small local security firm.

The eighth and ninth case studies focus on vigilante groups. These are Zungu Zungu Vigilante Group of Shauri Moyo Estate and Mathare Progressive Youth Group. The former vigilante group is based in a low-income workers' residence in eastern Nairobi and the latter is found in a very large informal settlement to the north-east of the geographical centre of Nairobi.

Chapter Three: The third section of the study attempts to tie together and draw conclusions from the lessons learnt, not only from the nine case studies but also in terms of the dynamic context of Nairobi's crime prevention situation. The section depicts the learning process by cross-comparisons of best practice, the lessons learnt, and planning considerations from the viewpoint of the stakeholders.

2. The research methodology

2.1. Data gathering

The approach to the study research started with discussions of the methodologies that might achieve the key objective of the cities' studies, i.e. the collection of baseline crime prevention data for comparability of crime prevention in the African cities. This research issue was settled by a meeting of all the researchers in Pretoria. The results were the development of (i) a Report Structure and (ii) a Case Study Structure, which were collectively agreed upon as the basis of the research.

After the above issues were settled, the individual researchers sought to find the ways that best suited the requirements for the information collection in their respective cities. These studies were undertaken independently.

Figure 1: Schematic hierarchy of stakeholders in crime prevention

The literature search on the city of Nairobi unearthed a surprisingly diverse field of stakeholders in crime prevention in the city. To make sense of the bewildering array of actors and organisations, stakeholders in crime prevention were divided in terms of their mandates, their internal organisations and their spatial jurisdictions. Out of this exercise emerged several clear major 'tiers' of crime prevention institutions and stakeholders within the city. These included international crime prevention initiatives, Government of Kenya institutions both at the national and local level, local non-governmental organisations, private formal sector security firms and stakeholders in the informal sector. Figure 1 illustrates a schematic hierarchy of crime prevention stakeholders in Nairobi.

A pre-field survey was undertaken in which as much information as possible was sought for each tier of stakeholders. This was executed mainly through Internet searches. A reconnaissance survey was also undertaken by the research assistant in Nairobi, prior to the principal researcher's arrival for the main survey.

On his arrival in Nairobi, a choice was made of representative stakeholders at each level and contacts were made for interview dates. Upon contact, there were discussions with the selected institutions. Each crime prevention stakeholder was informed of the study and handed the case-study questionnaire tailored to his or her circumstances, for study and a response. Questionnaires were open-ended and in the case of Nairobi were targeted towards key informants.

In all instances, and arising from the length of the case study questionnaire, I had to make several return visits in order to complete the interviews. In most cases the interviewees referred a one-on-one interview at which their direct answers were recorded. Officers from the following nine institutions, represented schematically in Figure 1, were interviewed:

The Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG-EA) which is a development poverty alleviation NGO. ITDG (EA) was mandated to implement UN Habitat's Safer Cities Program (SCP) in Nairobi. As already noted, the SCP was the most significant international crime prevention initiative in Nairobi at the time of the study.
The second organisation was the Kenya Police Force (KPF). Although this is a national police force (the sole one), the study focused on KPF's Nairobi Province organisation and activities.
The Nairobi City Council Inspectorate (NCCI) was the third organisation interviewed. The NCCI is the 'policing' part of the Nairobi City Council, which in turn is the local authority that runs the City of Nairobi. Its jurisdiction covers the whole of the city.
Two civic associations with a multiplicity of objectives, including crime prevention, were studied. They included We Can Do It (WCDI) an umbrella residents' association for the City of Nairobi, and the Nairobi Central Business District Association (the NCBDA), which focuses primarily on Nairobi city centre's problems.
Two formal-sector security firms were consulted. They included Securicor Ltd, which is a large multinational security corporation, and Secucenter Ltd, a small local security firm.
Last but not least were two informal-sector vigilante groups/ associations, Zungu Zungu from Nairobi's low-income residential area to the east of the city, and Mathare Progressive Youth Group, which is located in one of the largest informal settlements in Nairobi.

Answers to the questionnaire were recorded directly during the interviews. In some cases the interviewees preferred a computer disk with the questionnaire, which they answered in their own time. In this specific approach the study had the added benefit of accessing a considerable amount of information which was attached to the diskette with the questionnaire.

2.2. Data Processing

Data was processed in the field as the interviews were carried out. As each organisation was interviewed there was an attempt to get as complete a picture of their crime prevention initiatives as possible. In this way a full grasp of an organisation's contribution could be gained. As security and crime prevention are interlinked, I was in a position to detect contradictions or improbable claims in the complex webs of crime prevention stakeholders.

2.3. Data presentation

Despite the studies' initial emphasis on obtaining quantitative data to back organisational claims, most of the information presented herein is quantitative. Although many of the formal organisations, such as the Kenya Police Force or the Nairobi City Council Inspectorate, keep some statistics, attempts to access it proved too time consuming.¹

However, a quantitative 'feel' of the crime and crime prevention situation can be ascertained from recent crime surveys in Nairobi.² I refer the reader to these documents as they give a comprehensive statistical coverage of crime. The findings of the victim survey are
not reproduced here.

The data in this report is presented by giving a descriptive background to Nairobi in terms of the operations of the city and the crime situation. The middle part of the data presentation consists of the nine case studies, while the conclusion is a summary of the lessons learnt and best-case studies for crime prevention.

3. Background to the Nairobi Case Study

3.1. An overview of the City of Nairobi

The city of Nairobi is the capital of Kenya and the largest city in the eastern African region. The city was founded towards the end of the nineteenth century as a railway town during the construction of a railway line from the Indian Ocean coastline to the interior of East Africa. Nairobi now spans 680 km2/ 260 miles2. It has an estimated population of just over three million people, and it is thought to be growing at 5% per annum.³

At the relatively high altitude of 1675 m/5495 ft above sea level, the city of Nairobi is located to the south of the geographical centre of Kenya. Nairobi is surrounded by the rich agricultural ridge countryside of the Kiambu and Thika districts to the north, the traditional land of the Gikuyu. To the east and the west are the semi-arid Machakos and Kajiado Districts, traditional homelands of the Akamba and Masaai peoples respectively. This is also home to spectacular wildlife.

Figure 2: The City of Nairobi

Nairobi is a cosmopolitan city, a `melting pot' with a modern central business district, suburban business districts, large affluent suburbs and shopping centres. It is also a city of the poor, with large and intensely overcrowded low-income residential townships and suburbs as well as densely populated and large informal settlements. In between is an assortment of the usual land uses that make up any city: transportation routes, recreational parks, museums, places of worship, schools and so on. Unique to the city is the Nairobi National Park which teems with abundant wildlife. This lies partly within the city's territorial jurisdiction.

As the economic focus of Kenya and international centre for East Africa, Nairobi houses four airports, an inland container terminal, many agricultural processing and manufacturing industries, some car assembly plants, a few high-technology outlets, international banks, universities and the headquarters of several United Nations organisations, as well as other centres of employment in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy.

Like most Third World prime cities, Nairobi is characterised by high levels of unemployment. It is a receiving centre for refugees from the strife in the Horn of Africa, there is outrageous human and vehicular traffic congestion, a seriously deteriorated infrastructure (pot-holed roads, non-functional street lights, and mountains of garbage), decrepit housing and gravely polluted environments.

3.2. City management and governance issues

Nairobi is managed by the Nairobi City Council (NCC). The NCC operates under Kenya's Local Government Act (Cap 265). The act defines the duties, functions and responsibilities of all local authorities. The act also stipulates the sources of local government finances by making approvals for each authority dependent on the sources identified. Revenue finance is raised to meet the local authorities' current expenditures, while capital finances are also raised to carry out capital works, mainly infrastructure such as roads, water and sewerage expansion, housing, street lighting and others.⁴

The NCC is also managed at both technical and political levels. Its Chief Officers run the services department of the city, whilst the Mayor and constituent councilors run the political arm of the NCC. However, looking at the reports on the collection of revenue and its disbursement locally, one gets a distinct impression of a long history of serious governance problems.

NCC's most important taxes and main sources of revenue are those levied on Nairobi's land and buildings . These account for 60% of the Council's revenues However, there are serious problems here. The NCC still uses a valuation roll 21 years old! The review of the valuation roll is politically unpopular, despite the very rapid rise in property values over that time period. This has meant a loss of substantial revenue on the part of the NCC. Although I could apply several indices to indicate the NCC's weak financial base, I chose to illustrate its recent financial standing through trends in rate collection; and arrears in rates, in Figure 2 and Figure 3 respectively.

In the period 1991 to 1996 I note an unstable trend in rate collection. The period starts with declining levels of rates revenues, from 90% in 1991/92 to 50% in the 1993/94 period. It rises thereafter but it is still unstable. This performance coincides with a period of equally erratic economic performance by the country.

Figure 3: Nairobi City Council trends in rate collection⁵

NCC rates arrears show a steady rise from Kenya Shillings (KShs) 69 million in 1991 to 143 million in the 1996 period (1 US$ approximated to KShs 77 in January 2003). This shows the financial challenges the City Council faced in its attempts to meet financial obligations. Local government experts are of the opinion that the collection of rates was not an administratively difficult proposition. The consensus seems to be that success merely required an administration firmly determined to achieve low default rates.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the rates arrears problem is that it is the Government of Kenya and its parastatals that are the significantly guilty parties. In the City of Nairobi, the bulk of the Council's arrears were owed by the central government, which had in recent years failed to pay any grants in lieu of rates. Around the year 2000, the arrears stood at KShs 1.2 billion.

There are, however, further problems regarding the collection of rates. The rate is a tax, but it is a sensitive one because individual taxpayers also constitute constituencies for Nairobi's councilors. Councilors are normally reluctant to take steps that might lead to their own political demise. In such situations, the NCC has over the years been reluctant to push its technical officers to deal severely with defaulters and in the process ensure a sustained source of revenue.

Perhaps another nail in the City's coffin is that over the past twenty years it has become increasingly difficult to raise rates, fees, licences and other charges, due to the NCC's failure to deliver services it is legally mandated to provide. This is one reason for the Council's dire problems of governance, but it is also the genesis of many of the people's infrastructure and security initiatives that this case study outlines in the following chapters.⁶

Figure 4: Nairobi City Council rates arrears⁷

3.3. Major challenges facing local government

The UN Habitat report of 1997 on the privatisation and financing of Nairobi and other East African cities came up with the following conclusions and recommendations. These I feel are pointers to the challenges facing Nairobi City Council:⁸

Property rating was an essential source of revenue for Nairobi, contributing 60% of its revenue.
Whilst the Central Government owned a considerable number of properties in the city of Nairobi and thus used the NCC's services and was thus supposed to pay full rates or provide grants, it had not done so for a long while. This deprived the NCC of considerable revenue.
The more articulate residents of Nairobi viewed rate payment as a futile exercise, akin to pouring their already scarce financial resources into the proverbial bottomless pit.
There was clear incompetence demonstrated over a long period of time in the provision of urban services by the NCC. This apparently arose from the complexity of providing the infrastructure and services, as well as the high level of capital investments required for the provision of such facilities.
The income from the service charges did not meet the costs of the services the NCC provided, and even so the service charge was abolished in the 1998/99 financial year.
Arising from the worsening of services and the lack of expansion to cater for Nairobi's growing population, private providers emerged to rise to the challenge and to fill the gap. This emergence of service providers in Nairobi applied across many sectors, including crime prevention.
The NCC has reached a stage where servicing and securing domestic and international loans is an impossible economic and political proposition.

The report recommends a greater sharing of revenue sources between central government and local government, as well as stretching the yield potential of existing sources within the Nairobi City Council. A recent development here is that the problems of Nairobi City Council face radical transformation, with the coming of the opposition NARC (National Rainbow Coalition) into government for the first time in Kenya's history in December 2002. In its first month in office, which coincided with the field research period, there were significant pointers to the transformation planned for the country and Nairobi. These planned changes continue to be revealed as time passes.⁹

Thus the City of Nairobi as a local authority is seriously challenged on a variety of aspects of service provision and is set within a basically dysfunctional local authority system hampered by serious financial problems and a lack of vision.

4. Crime as a Priority

4.1. Crime as a city council and people's priority

The Nairobi City Council defines crime from several viewpoints. The first, and its strict legal mandate, is offences in which the Council's by-laws are broken with criminal intent. The second is when crime is committed with regard to the Council's personnel or property. And yet a wider interpretation offered by its officers is the safety and security of all the people and property within its jurisdiction: the City of Nairobi, including visitors to the city.

As far as can be made out, the Nairobi City Council has confined the meaning of crime strictly to the first of the above interpretations. This is exemplified by the council's structures, which contain the `Inspectorate', a department dedicated specifically to the issues of dealing with breaking of by-laws and keeping order. The Council may claim to be concerned for the security and safety of all, but there is really no structure that functions at this level of the city to encompass a more holistic interpretation of crime and its prevention in the city.

With regard to the people of Nairobi, one can discern a great concern with crime and crime prevention.

First and foremost are the hundreds of thousands of individual and communal initiatives that try to address what is visibly a deteriorated city security and safety environment. Examples of this concern are the personal precautions people take as individuals and as family members to ensure the safety of their persons and household property. The people express their concerns about crime in the residents' associations that approach the problem as a collective. Concern for crime prevention also manifests itself in the shape of vigilante groups.¹⁰
The peoples' concern for crime as a priority is again evident in the great numbers of residents and businesses that subscribe to a mushrooming private-sector security industry.

There is no doubt that the people of Nairobi rate crime as a high priority. A testament to this concern is the recent UN Habitat Victimisation Survey, published in September 2002. Among other issues it showed that many in the city had been victims to crimes. About two years ago Nairobi was downgraded by the United Nations to one of the least pleasant and safe places to work in, amidst protestations from the local Kenyans.¹¹ This is an indication of the impact of crime on the international perception of Nairobi.

4.2. Other priorities

The prolonged lack of citywide development plans, the failure of government institutions to deliver services to the people and the proliferation of a great number of non-governmental organisations in the City of Nairobi made it more difficult to pinpoint what the citizens of Nairobi and the City Council felt were priority issues. There was no coordinated consensus that could list even the three or five most burning issues.

With the NARC Government assuming power in December 2002, Nairobi has witnessed some rapid moves to fight corruption by a government sparing no one who was known or suspected to have abused their public office for private gain. Other pronouncements have been issued with regard to making government institutions work as they are mandated to. It is still early days for the NARC Government. Most informed opinion estimates that it will take Kenya and Nairobi several years to turn around the deterioration it has experienced in nationhood over the past twenty years or so.

In the meanwhile, I may tentatively conclude that whilst crime and crime prevention certainly have their place with other issues as being important to Nairobi and its citizens, in the absence of a clear vision from the City Council and an in-depth articulation of a crime prevention vision from the new government, I am not in a position to state the priorities, as all issues need some serious rethinking, given the deteriorated conditions of the city and the negative experiences the people have gone through in the last two decades.

5. Development of thinking on crime within Nairobi

The historical circumstances that combined to define the attitude towards crime, and the competing ideas on and approaches to crime and its prevention in Kenya, have evolved in Nairobi over the past century.

Prior to the British colonisation of modern Kenya in the late nineteenth century, the various peoples had their own ethnically defined mores and codes of conduct. Crime and punishment were defined through social processes.¹² The penetration of the interior of the country by the Arabs and later by the British brought with it new concepts of 'law and order'. These were superimposed on the different peoples in the intervening period.

The policing philosophy that eventually became the norm was the British model, which had evolved in the British Empire in India. Indeed the police model was introduced into the future Kenya through the Uganda Railway Police, essentially as the transfer of Britain's railway building and policing experiences from India to Africa.

The policing model can be roughly characterised as follows. Firstly, the police force was in place to protect British interests in the new protectorate and colony. It would have British officers in command of all its structures and operations. Secondly, 'native' recruits would be predominantly responsible for covering the African locations, whilst 'European' officers could cover their kin and kith in towns and rural areas. Thirdly, the police were under the command of the colonial administrators who determined the security policies of the colony.

The police force was more or less able to keep the peace from the early twentieth century until the Mau Mau insurrection in the early 1950s, after which it could no longer function as originally conceived. The Mau Mau war was to make a lasting impression on the Kenya Police in the country as a whole and Nairobi in particular, particularly in the manner the police organised and executed their work.

The Mau Mau war (1952-1956), taking place in the bush and the young city of Nairobi, was a watershed in the philosophical evolution of the Kenya Police Force as a security apparatus. In the execution of the war against the indigenous peoples who had challenged white colonial rule, Kenya's security forces were transformed in several ways. I highlight some of the salient facts of the situation:¹³

The police applied British methods for the suppression of internal colonial revolts which had previously been successful in revolts ranging from the recent Malaysian insurrections to the Boer Wars and further back in time.
There was a closer fusion evident between government administration and the various military arms.
Random searches and perpetual harassment expeditions were commonly applied policing methodologies, in military terms: 'general sweeps'. Troops reverted to the harassment of the general population in the absence of police territorial control as in the Nairobi of 1953.
Trained spies were used to gather intelligence through interrogation and infiltration. Confessions from captured `enemies of the state' were also used as intelligence material.
There was general government and police mistrust of and ill-will towards the enemy, even when trying to build peace bridges with opponents.
The use of military sieges, as in Operation Anvil which commenced in April 1954 in Nairobi, became a policing method in the Mau Mau countryside. The setting up of detention camps in such operational areas became the norm. 'Guilt by association' meant that suspects would have to prove their innocence to the police. The enemy's own people (loyalist Africans) were used to betray them, as in the use of the infamous `Home Guards' against the Mau Mau in central Kenya.¹⁴ All these were additional military-police operational strategies that were added at the time.
Spy networks were maintained and extended, and 'pseudo gangs', consisting of former guerrillas, were used to further harass the population.

One of the results of this military-police approach to containing the Mau Mau situation in Nairobi and the rest of the country was that "by 1955 corruption and brutality had reached scandalous levels in the Home Guard, with the white colonial and native troops being equally guilty of brutality against civilians. The Government amnesty of 1955 absolved the Home Guard from any impending prosecution and gave Mau Mau guerrillas a chance to surrender".¹⁵ This indicates that not only was brutality encouraged but also legally condoned, even while the same administration admitted that it had got out of hand.

However, at the same time there was internal in-fighting in the Kenya Police among the personalities who had been given the responsibility of running the organisation. This led to the debate on whether the Kenya Police should be a `police force ' or a `police service '. These debates took place at the tail end of the Mau Mau insurgency.

Sir Arthur Young was at the centre of the `service' verses `force' tussle.¹⁶ Sir Arthur Young is known as a reformist English police officer. The core of his policing philosophy is upholding the 'metropolitan' rather than the 'military' tradition of British policing.¹⁷ Even in the tense situation of colonial wars he held to his belief that "A police force should embrace independence and secondly, impartiality. This would be achieved through the rule of law as opposed to the rule of the gun".¹⁸The ideas that Arthur Young tried to introduce into the chaotic situation of the Mau Mau rebellion had been formed during his experience of the suppression of the Malaysian insurgency against the British.

Briefly, Arthur Young's concept of a police 'service' rather than a 'force' was as follows. A police service permits "a relationship of real friendliness between the police and the public". These ideals concur with the notion that the "police were servants of the public rather than the colonial government". A police 'service' was therefore accountable to the population, which in turn freed it from control by the executive, such as the colonial governor, the president or prime minister of the state, and thus the police service subjected itself to the command and responsibility of its own police officers.

Furthermore Arthur Young, described as a "noted morale and anti-corruption hell raiser",¹⁹ added that "the respect of the people for the police, founded upon confidence in their impartiality, will enable the relationship between the police and the public to develop along lines which would be quite impossible if the people regarded the police as the blind instruments of the will of the government".

Here I clearly see in Arthur Young a police officer seconded to Nairobi whose instincts and beliefs went against the grain of the prevailing colonial administration, the military, the police and the white settler community mindset. His ideas were seen as unworkable in the Kenyan context, where government administration "saw the police as its subordinate". His ideas were simply not accepted by the powers that be. Arthur Young stayed in Kenya for less than a year and then resigned.

Thus it seems likely that the crime and crime prevention attitudes in the city of Nairobi arose from this harsh, uncertain, insecure and fluid security environment of the Mau Mau insurgency, the decolonisation war in Kenya. Observers at the time described Kenya as a state "ruled by fear rather than the law".²⁰ The evidence from this period shows that not only was brutality encouraged in the wide range of security organs that existed, but that brutality was also legally condoned by government.

This state of affairs shaped the mindset and operational precedents for the Kenya Police Force in its present constitution. This goes far to explain the Kenya Police's current negative image, the brutality and the fear that the population associates with the police force.²¹ The Mau Mau 'rites of passage' are the historical roots that were never severed. One can only speculate on what the character of the Kenya Police might have been if Sir Arthur Young had succeeded, nearly forty years ago, in introducing his vision of the Kenya police as a `service' rather than the 'force' that it is today.

I postulate that the above historical precedent shaped the Kenya Police Force as the supreme civilian policing authority, not only in the city of Nairobi but in the rest of the country as well. This organisational disposition explains past initiatives and ways in which it has addressed crime, and its unfavourable perception by the people of Kenya. It also throws light on the present inertia and general resentment in the Kenya Police Force as regards other civil role players in crime prevention in Nairobi and Kenya generally.

6. Current approach to crime at a citywide level.

6.1. Crime prevention Initiatives in Nairobi

Even before the NARC Government came to power, there have been for the last twenty years a variety of crime prevention initiatives in the City of Nairobi. These came about for several reasons, including:

an ineffective police force and deteriorating security and safety
the degeneration of infrastructure and the living environment
population growth and rising levels of unemployment
unprecedented levels of corruption
the reintroduction of multiparty democracy
a poor or nearly nonexistent economy.

The above factors led the people of Nairobi to search for ways out of their predicament. As a result initiatives arose in many spheres of life in Nairobi and Kenya, driven by the imperative of survival. Crime prevention is one of the initiatives that took root in a sea of growing lawlessness. Crime prevention initiatives arose for both the poor and the affluent, and in almost all geographically distinct parts of the city, such as the city centre, suburban neighbourhoods and informal settlements. Initiatives arose in both the formal and informal sectors of the economy.

6.2. Relationship of the various initiatives

Many of the initiatives were demarcated by territorial limits of people who shared common crime and other problems. The initiatives were thus randomly located in the city. It is only later that the initiatives transformed into groupings of like-minded people and hence residents' associations and vigilante groups. The tendency at first was for autonomous existence. Cross relationships are in all probability a recent phenomenon.

6.3. The main role players

The main role players in crime prevention in the city of Nairobi are:

The Kenya Police Force, with its large number of specialist units
The Inspectorate of the Nairobi City Council
Private-sector commercial security firms
Non-profit civil organisations such as charities and residential associations
Vigilante groups, which are nevertheless proscribed by the law.

6.4. Crime as the implicit or explicit priority of the role players

Crime and crime prevention are the core business of the Kenya Police and private sector commercial security agencies. The NCC Inspectorate is involved in crime prevention, but specifically only with regard to enforcing the city's by-laws. Civil organisations and vigilante groups have crime and crime prevention as ongoing concerns, but they are also concerned with other issues such as the repair and expansion of infrastructure, dysfunctional services, the problems of polluted environments, the sharing of political power in the city and a host of other issues.

Thus for the Kenya Police and commercial security agencies crime and crime prevention is an explicit undertaking, whilst for other stakeholders crime prevention is both explicit and implicit in their self-imposed mandates.

6.5. Major factors influencing the change in thinking about crime

This section is purely speculative. In December 2002, the new NARC government came into office. It is the first time that opposition parties have assumed power, with the resounding defeat of KANU, which had ruled Kenya since the departure of the British in 1963. The election was won on a platform of fighting the corruption that had become endemic in Kenya. Reform of society and especially the rehabilitation of government institutions was one of the new government's priorities.

The Kenya Police was one of the first institutions mentioned as due for reform.²² However, what was not made clear was whether the reforms would take place within the existing structures, or whether an attempt would be made to transform the Kenya Police substantially from a 'force' to a 'service'. Already there are suggested changes in this direction in the pipeline by the new Police Commissioner.²³

Moreover, there have been some rapid and perhaps symbolic affirmations of concern with regard to enhanced security and the fighting of graft. These took place within a short time of the NARC having assumed power.

One such event was the destruction of illegal firearms in Nairobi in a ceremony led by the country's Vice-President, Kijana Wamalwa, at Uhuru Park in Nairobi in March 2003.

In the spirit of the times the new Commissioner of Police also ordered the abolition of road blocks. It was reported that "road blocks were removed after the realisation that they had outlived their usefulness and that corrupt officers manning them were enriching themselves at the expense of the motorists' safety"; that "the unnecessary delays caused at the barriers had impacted negatively on the country's growth as they led to wasted hours and resources".²⁴

Whether this new outlook consolidates and transforms the thinking on crime in Nairobi and the rest of the country will depend on the concerted action of all Kenyans. Only time will tell.

Notes

In some cases, for example the Inspectorate at the NCC, was able to quickly put together some
statistics.
1. UNDP, UN-Habitat, Safer Cities, ITDG(EA). Crime in Nairobi: Results of a citywide victim survey. September 2002. 2. Muchai A, Jefferson C. Kenya Crime Survey 2000. Nairobi: SRIC.
Tibaijuka AK. 2002. Foreword in Crime in Nairobi: Results of a citywide victim survey.
Topfer K. Main sources of municipal revenue in financing cities for sustainable development, with specific reference to East Africa. UN-Habitat.
Ibid; extracted and constructed from Topfer 12.
'Karengata', a ratepayers' association located in the affluent suburbs of Karen and Langata to the west of Nairobi, started the revolt against the NCC's tendency to collect rates without service delivery. Karengata successfully obtained a court order restraining the NCC from collecting rates for services they were not delivering. This act encouraged other similar stakeholders to follow a similar path.
Ibid; extracted and constructed from Topfer 13.
Topfer 'Summary of main findings, conclusions and recommendations'.
Marindany K, Kavila W. 'Overhaul Nairobi City Council, Maitha orders Aketch'. East African Standard.
15 March 2003. Internet: http://www.eastandard.net/headlines/news15032003008.htm
A vigilante group can be described as a group of people or individuals who subscribe to uncontrolled or unlawful action in order to further their collective (i) security and safety of persons and property (ii) social-cultural ideals (iii) political objectives. I am truly grateful to Justus Okoko of SaferWorld for this expertise thesis of the world of the vigilante in Kenya and Nairobi.
1. Harman D. 'Dark Days for Nairobi – Kenya's once-lauded 'green city in the sun'. Christian Science Monitor. 5 February 2001. Internet: //CI/My Documents/Journal Articles/p7sl.html.
2. Kamanga C. 'UN Mislead on city crime rate'. Daily Nation. Internet:
http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/18012001/Letters/Letters11.html.
British Institute in Eastern Africa. Crime in Eastern Africa: Past and present perspectives. Abstracts of a conference organised by the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) and the Institut Française de Recherche en Afrique (IFRA) 8 -11 July 2002, Naivasha, Kenya.
These highlights come from British military strategy in Kenya. Internet:
http://www.britainssmallwars.com/kenya/Strategy.html.
It is reputed that the Home Guards killed 42% of the Mau Mau guerrillas.
British military strategy in Kenya. Planning for crime prevention: the case of the City of Nairobi 18
Sir Arthur Young: The quintessential English policeman. Internet:
http://www.psni.police.uk/museum/proceedings1.htm.
He was convinced of the correctness of the approaches that he advocated. This was not without substance, because he actually had a reputation as an outstanding policeman through his initiatives and advice on police training, organisations and methodologies.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
There are many contemporary articles and opinions that portray the Kenya Police Force as extremely brutal. Ten randomly selected internet examples put this viewpoint across.
1. Majtenji C. 'Kenya Police act more like an occupying army then a civil upholder of the peace'. In Your Face. http:// www.newit.org/issue282/face.htm.
2. Muiruri S. 'Killed in a bungled rescue operation'. In Your Face. August 2002.
  http://www/nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/Supplements/notebook/current/story3.htm.
3. 'A shocking toll of heroes' . Nation Team, Monday Notebook. August 2002.
  http://www/nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/Supplements/notebook/current/story3.htm.
4. 'Kenya: Police promise justice after weekend slumkillings'. http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=23749.
5. 'Arrest and Interrogation'. http://www.saxakali.com/Saxakali-Publications/maina3.htm.
6. 'Kenya Police accused of brutality'. BBC News. 2 December 1997.
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/36405.stm.
7. 'Police brutality in Kenya'. BBC News. 11 December 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/233262.stm.
8. 'Kenya police 'beat' MP'. BBC News. 13 May 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/1984768.stm.
9. Muliro Telewa 'Kenya police negligent'. BBC News. 3 October 2001.
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/1577510.stm.
10. 'Police are Kenya's top killers'. BBC News. 14 January 2002.
  http://news.bbc.co.uk.2/hi/world/africa/1759421.stm.
In his capacity as Chairman of the Democratic Party of Kenya, President Mwai Kibaki addressed the issue of insecurity in the Madaraka Day Message of 31 May 2001, stating: "No meaningful development can take place in an environment characterised by a runaway crime rate, which renders forces of law and order ineffective in fighting crime…" http://www.dpkenya.org/statements/madaraka01.shtml.
Kareithi A. 'Police boss abolishes road blocks'. Standard Newspaper. 12 April 2003.
http://www.eastandard.net/headlines/news12042003003.htm.
Ibid.

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